Tourist train for
coalfields has a locomotive engine donated
Sunday, Jul 29, 2007
- 01:15 AM
BY Kathy Still
Staff Writer
The Buchanan County
Tourist Train Development Authority has chugged along for more than four years
now on a plan to draw visitors to the region’s coal and railroad culture.
The authority
garnered 6.2 miles of active rail line to develop a tourism train to showcase
the county’s coal-rich heritage in the Whitewood and Jewell Valley
communities.
The project proved
victorious in several competitive grant programs to finance the tourism train,
but a crucial part of the project proved elusive.
Carroll Branham, a
county supervisor and tourist train authority member, said the agency needed a
locomotive engine to pull the train.
The locomotive quest
took county leaders far and wide, she said. After months of frustrating
searches, the authority found what it needed close to home.
CONSOL Energy, one of
the county’s largest employers, had retired a locomotive engine that hauled
coal from two of Buchanan
County’s most-productive
mines.
The locomotive served
the company’s Virginia Pocahontas No. 8 mine near Deskins, and Virginia
Pocahontas No. 1 mine in the Dismal community. The company stopped using the
engine when VP-8 was shut down in the spring 2006.
The company donated
the $40,000 engine to the authority earlier this month.
"We’re fortunate
to have this," Branham said. "To find this engine was a monumental
task. I think it will work out well."
County leaders are
now ready to move forward on the tourism train project since the crucial
locomotive is in place.
"CONSOL Energy
is pleased to be able to donate the locomotive engine we had at VP-8 to
Buchanan County’s tourist train authority," John Zachwieia, vice president
of the company’s Central Appalachia Operations, said in a news release.
"We are pleased to play a part in helping Buchanan County
to achieve its goals for the tourist train project."
Craig Horn, the
authority’s executive director, said the coal company’s donation will advance
the project. The donated engine means the authority can spend money it would
have used to purchase an engine on other parts of the project, Horn said.
The authority is
seeking engineering bids on the entire project, Branham said.
"We’ve got three
separate things going on up there," Branham said. "We have a biking
trail and a walking trail that runs parallel but separate from the tourist
train. We hope to open some of this area up to more tourism."
The Virginia Department
of Transportation awarded nearly $700,000 in enhancement program grants for the
biking and hiking trails. The Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority
awarded more than $500,000 in grants from its tourism capital improvement fund
for rail line development and overall project development.
The authority could
have more information about a timetable for the project’s opening after the
engineering bids are awarded.
