NKP Adena, Cadiz and New Athens, OH track plan HO
- Size: 15′ x 18′
- Scale: HO
- Minimum Radius: 27″
- Minimum Aisle Width: 30″
- Designed by Dan Bourque
The Adena, Cadiz & New Athens Railway was run as a branch of the Wheeling & Lake Erie, and later the Nickel Plate, N&W and NS. The line extended 10 miles from Adena to the large Georgetown Preparation Plant at Cadiz, OH where it met up with the Pennsylvania Railroad and later the PC and Conrail. The NKP and PRR worked the preparation plant jointly. Between Adena and Cadiz were several short branches and tipples, especially in the Georgetown/Hanna area. The Hanna Coal Company’s Georgetown #12 mine had 5 tipples alone (tipples … Read more
The heart of the WM’s coal fields was Elkins, WV. The yard at Elkins was the sending and gathering point for mine runs and locals working the four lines west including the B&O connection to Belington, WV, the branch to Mill Creek, WV, the winding line to Webster Springs, WV and the branch to a connection with the C&O at Durbin, WV. These lines supplied the WM with loads of coal and lumber products. From Elkins, the loads needed … 
This layout is great for those who like both the Baltimore & Ohio and the Western Maryland pre-Chessie and like a slow pace and lots of switching. The Western Maryland’s coal operations in West Virginia were mostly centered around Elkins, but there was an interesting exception a bit further west. The WM served three small coal branches out of the tiny town of Chiefton, WV. The interesting thing is that the WM main runs nowhere near Chiefton. Instead, the … 
Elmore, WV was the heart of the Virginian Railway’s coal operations. Besides being the major coal marshaling yard and and the base for mine runs and helpers, Elmore (along with nearby Mullens) was home to large facilities for big steam working the coal branches and mainline west and the electrics working the helper grade east and mainline to the Virginia coast. It was precisely for these attributes that a friend wanted to model this area.
The Norfolk & Western had coal branches all across southern West Virginia. The North Fork Branch stemmed from the busy Bluefield-Williamson mainline of the Pocahontas Division. Like most branches, the North Fork was filled with loaders and a variety of track arrangements to serve them. This is what makes branch line modeling so great for those who love switching. This line was active into the NS era, though I am not sure which loaders remained active.
Working the N&W’s Norton yard in Southwestern Virginia required sets of six-axle locomotives. The yard has a 1% descending grade from west to east. Tracks 1 thru 8 (original numbering) hold 40 hoppers each; at 100 tons each, that is 4000 tons. One six-axle unit at Norton couldn’t handle much more than switching the caboose track. One Dash-8 would not even pull the 21 loads out of Norton Coal (switch off N&W Main at the east end of yard that crossed the Miller Yard Main of Interstate in Norton).
The Paw Paw Branch, a 13 mile coal branch, was situated near the West Virginia/Pennsylvania border. It was jointly operated by the B&O and Monongahela railroads and their successors. The branch left the Monongahela river at Rivesville, WV where the B&O’s Paw Paw Branch joined with the end of the Monongahela’s trackage along the river at Catawba Jct. The B&O entered the area via its large yard at Fairmont, WV, just a few miles south of Rivesville. The Monongahela’s trackage extended along the river to the main … 
Few branches in the Appalachians saw more coal than the Clinchfield’s Fremont Branch. Like every other coal branch, it was lined with loaders of various sizes, but at the end of the branch lay the massive Moss No. 1 prep plant. There are many characteristics that made the Fremont Branch interesting. First, the profile of the branch climbed a ridgeline from the CRR main, punched through Bear Penn Gap Tunnel, and then descended most of the way to the end of the line at Moss. Second, Moss was …