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T’S PRETTY APPARENT that coal is no longer king in Appalachia. Mines and loaders are silent, and people are out of work. Once-prosperous towns are now shells of their former selves. And the number of coal trains plying the railroads in the region are greatly diminished.


On November 22-23, 2015, I visited the heart of Appalachian coal country in deep southern West Virginia.


This is where Norfolk Southern’s Pocahontas District operates — the fabled mainline of the Norfolk & Western. The gateway to the region is the massive yard in Bluefi eld, and the empty tracks were all you needed to know about the current situation there. Gone are the long strings of coal hoppers; the two trains present were a mixed manifest and a stack train. Changing times, indeed.


The steep grade into Bluefi eld means trains going east require more locomotives than trains going west, creating an imbalance of power. Light engine moves send power back west to equalize the imbalance. A string of locomotives pass the abandoned school at Eckman, W.Va., on November 23, 2015. The region is littered with abandoned schools, churches, and stores in almost every town.


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