Mining Coal Trains

[Cody J]

I doubt any of you know this but why not give it a shot.
I live in St. Clairsville, Ohio and my brothers and I are going railfanning on Wednesday around the Ohio River Valley. Does anyone know the traffic amounts for the NS Panhandle Line, the Ohio Central Panhandle Line, the CSX Ohio River Sub (northern end), the NS and Wheeling & Lake Erie River Lines and the NS Weirtion Secondary?

Thanks,
cody

[jward]

from what i can see, there's not much going on around there. probably your best bet is the ns yard at mingo jc.

if you have the time and inclination, going a little further up the ohio river to the conway/beaver area will get you a major ns yard, ns and csx mainlines, and more trains than you can possibly get photos of.

best way there from st clairsville, rt 70 east to rt79 north, to pa 65 north, follow 65 about 10 miles to conway.

[Cody J]

Great idea Jward but since my brother is driving, he wants to stay around the valley. With a little help from my neighbor, who's dad loads coal trains, we're going to chase a Wheeling & Lake Erie 54 car coal train from Hopedale, Ohio to the Cardinal Power Plant in Brilliant, Ohio.

I might check out Conway sometime. There are a lot of interesting railfanning places in Western PA, but first it requires a  LOT of research.

cody

[jward]

no it doesn't. just ask me, i've been hitting all the spots in the pittsburgh area for 25 years. i can point you to some really great spots.

btw, if you know when the trains are running, i can see chasing the coal trains. i usually work the ohio valley on wednesdays, from wheeling to east liverpool. i rarely see anything moving. but at rayland there is a place that unloads coal barges, and they have an old gp35 that i believe originally worked for southern pacific. it is painted in a rather nice looking maroon and grey similar to the old canadian pacific colours.

[Cody J]

Yeah, the train were chasing is actually going to go through the Warrenton Wye in Rayland, and I'm hoping that we can go see the Ex- SP GP35, it looks rather nice from seeing it on Railpictures.net and from my many trips over the years up and down State Route 7