[?]

Norfolk Southern Pocahontas Division

This may come as a quite shock to many of you railfans, but I like Norfolk Southern. Go ahead, laugh, scoff, make snide remarks about why anyone would actually try to shoot NS black and white. I don't care. I know that they take a dim view of us railfans (but a lot that is our own fault, you know) and those black units with white lettering aren't all that exciting in most settings. But where I'm from, in the hills of West Virginia, where the exhaust of A's, J's and Y's used to reverberate off the mountain sides and echo down the valleys, black engines pulling black hoppers loaded with black diamonds will always look right.

1. In Welch, WV, an eastbound coal train roars up Elkhorn Grade.
2. Its helpers disappear into the tunnel.
3. East of Iaeger, morning light glints off an eastbound.
4. Just outside of Roderfield, an eastbound has just received its helpers and is starting the battle with the 1.4% Elkhorn Grade.
5. Near Capels, helpers shove hard on eastbound coal.
6. At Justice, WV a Norfolk and Western caboose brings up the rear of a mine run on the old Virginian.
7. Before the Conrail merger, a mine run approaches the switch at Belva, WV.
8. Blue SD40's cross a brigde near the end of the West Virginia Secondary.
9. Parting shot of the same train.
10. Still on the Secondary, but now under NS control, a train loads at a new mine near Swiss, WV.
11. Before NS dropped their steam program, #611 simmers in Williamson.