(rshsdepot) From the Abandoned Railroads of the US Yahoo list...

[Dherbert53_@_aol.com]

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  Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 22:17:29 -0000
   From: "vot701" <vaoverland_@_aol.com>
Subject: NS Abandonment May Lead to New VA Tourist Operation

From Trainoders: 

A stretch of rail between Bluestone, West Virginia and Pocahontas, 
Virginia, which has remained unused for about the past 10 years, 
formally will be abandoned by Norfolk Southern Railway, officials 
say. The railway plans to file later this month a notice of 
abandonment with the federal Surface Transportation Board.
The town of Pocahontas is interested in using the 1.9 Bluestone to 
Pocahontas line for a tourist train, according to railway 
spokesperson Susan Bland. She said the company is working with local 
tourist train project officials on the project "and we're happy to do 
so." The railroad will file its plan with the STB "on or about" 
August 29. 

Pocahontas Mayor John Pat Hurley confirmed that the town wants to use 
the line for a tourist train. He said tourist train authorities on 
both sides of the state line, including Bramwell, have been working 
on the project. 

Hurley said the train would travel from near the old train station in 
Pocahontas to Bramwell, where the train station there has been 
restored. Since a tourist train, he said, can't be pushed by a 
locomotive. It must be pulled, which means the train would have to go 
to the Matoaka area "where it would get a turning line and make a 
loop to come back." 

Bland said the notice to file is part of a process "that absolutely 
has to happen before this can be approved. It's a standard process 
that in effect just starts the ball rolling." According to the 
notice, the STB will prepare an Environmental Assessment, which 
normally would be available 25 days after the filing of the notice. 
Interested persons will be able to obtain a copy of the assessment or 
make "inquiries" regarding environmental matters that must be filed 
no later than 15 days after the document becomes available to the 
public. These "inquiries" will be part of the STB decision, the 
notice said.

Hurley said a meeting on the tourist train project is scheduled for 
August 27 at the Coal Miner's Kitchen at the Pocahontas Exhibition 
Mine. Representatives of a tourist train authority on the Virginia 
side and another on the West Virginia side of the line are expected 
to attend and officials from the office of Rep. 
Rick Boucher. Others, such as state Sen. Philip Puckett and state 
Rep. Jackie Stump have been invited, along with some of their 
counterparts in West Virginia. 

"This tourist train has been talked about for 10 years," Hurley 
said. "We either need to get hot on this, pursue it and make it a 
reality or use our time, energy and brain power on something else." 
Hurley said vendors in the coal industry have been helping 
recondition the exhibition mine at no cost to the town. "We hope to 
have that completed in the new few weeks," he said.



Dean Carroll
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are 
loved.---Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

- --44.3434c72b_alt_bound
=================================
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railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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