BY PATRICK YOUGH/PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
central Appalachian coal, it has been an downward spiral since the mid to late 1990s. In his book The Men Who Loved Trains, author Rush Loving, Jr., explains, “Norfolk Southern was beginning to need Conrail for a reason so secret that only a few people inside NS and the coal industry knew it. The railroad’s legendary profit center, the export coal business from Appalachia, was not as healthy as it appeared. The coalfields in southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia were being depleted. Coal seams were narrow, making the mines less competitive.” Norfolk Southern needed Conrail for
long-term survival especially with the export market shrinking, since NS would have few domestic customers looking to burn central Appalachian coal. Prior to the 1999 acquisition, CSX had access to more coal reserves and power plants than Norfolk Southern did. By acquiring Conrail, both CSX and NS had access to the highly efficient longwall mines located on the former Monongahela Railway in Pennsylvania.
Princeton-Deepwater District Post-Conrail The mines on the former Virginian Railway historically supplied various grades of metallurgical coal used in the process to make coke. Metallurgical
or “met” coal differs from “steam” coal by having lower ash and lower sulfur content. After the Conrail merger, steam coal was routed over the former Virginian from the ex-New York Central West Virginia Secondary, bringing Pittsburgh steam coal to northern Appalachia from the highly efficient longwall mines on the former Monongahela. Coke is made by heating the coal in an oxygen-derprived furnace or oven and driving off the volatile matter, leaving pure carbon. The byproducts can be recovered and purified into chemicals such as anhydrous ammonia, and aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene, and xylene.
A Wheeling & Lake Erie train moves coal from the Bullskin tipple in Connellsville, Pa., destined for Lehigh Cement in Glens Falls, N.Y., on the former Delaware & Hudson. The routing involves four separate regional railroads including Southwest Pennsylvania; Wheeling & Lake Erie; Allegheny Valley; Buffalo & Pittsburgh; and Class I railroads Norfolk Southern and Canadian Pacific.
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