Clifton Forge, Va. – The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society has released a publication that saves the long-ago research of Mr. Carl A. Coulter, a C&O Railway employee in the Logan, West Virginia region. The completed 80-page book, Chesapeake & Ohio’s Logan, West Virginia Subdivision, is a history of this very important coal district never before available to the public. The Logan district was the most productive coal mining area on the Chesapeake & Ohio from 1917 to 1960. At its height, it had over 150 mines on 17 railroad branch lines.
A Chesapeake & Ohio Railway fireman and locomotive engineer out of Peach Creek Yard from 1920 to 1970, Mr. Coulter wrote most of this material before his death in 1979. According to C&O Historical Society Founder and Chief Historian Thomas W. Dixon, Jr., who compiled the notebooks, scrapbooks, and information used to publish the book’s content, “Carl Coulter lived the operations firsthand for 50 years and had a great memory of how things were run during his period of work. He also took photos, though he had only the small Kodak general purpose cameras, such as could be purchased for a couple of dollars at any drug store of the period. Nonetheless, some of Mr. Coulter’s photos are all that we have to depict some of the operation on the Logan Subdivision.”
According to the C&O Historical Society, the construction of the C&O Railway’s Logan Subdivision was part of a major period of expansion for the railroad that started in the late 1890s and ended near the beginning of World War I. This expansion saw the development of the massive coal fields of southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky by construction of scores of branch lines that reached the various coal seams as new mines were projected and opened.
Now explored and documented in detail with this release, Chesapeake & Ohio’s Logan, West Virginia Subdivision offers details on the railroad’s operation around Logan, branchlines throughout the region, the numerous passenger trains that once served the region, and the Railway Post Office (RPO) operations that served southern West Virginia residents. To complete the story, the C&O Historical Society has included maps, track charts, diagrams, and over 120 illustrations, especially from the 1940-1970 era.
Commenting on the material composed by Mr. Carl A. Coulter between 1970 and 1979 and this new work in his name, Thomas W. Dixon, Jr. explained a deeper meaning behind the 2023 book, “We believe it to be not only a fitting tribute for a real gentleman and railroader of the old order, but important to consolidate this material into one place. Mr. Coulter was a charter member of the C&O Historical Society and contributed greatly to our publications and historical work in our first decade. His experience as a fireman and then engineer for 50 years out of C&O’s Peach Creek, W. Va. terminal coupled with his ability to recall and cogently write about these experiences constitute a remarkable piece of railway history. I was privileged to know him in those last years of his life and am glad to be able to pull this book together.”
The C&O’s Peach Creek Shops, whose yard still operates today for CSX Transportation, receives a great deal of attention within the pages of Chesapeake & Ohio Logan, West Virginia Subdivision. In the age of steam-powered locomotives, scores of Mallet-type H-6 2-6-6-2 compound articulated engines were based out of Peach Creek Yard, including the now-famous No. 1309, the last commercially-built steam locomotive in America. Built in 1949, No. 1309 was used until the end of steam on the Logan Subdivision.
The 80-page softbound book is printed to the same quality standards as the C&O Historical Society’s other books and features over 120 historic illustrations from the Logan region.
Thomas W. Dixon, Jr. concluded, “The concept of consolidating some of the first-person writings and research of Carl A. Coulter into a book is to place this important and unique work into a single publication. However, it is more than that, it also serves as a tribute to the work of Mr. Coulter, who was one of the first C&O Historical Society members back in 1969. He was the rarest of men, a railroad employee who never lost interest in appreciation for his of his work as fireman and engineer first on steam and then in diesels and even the romance of railroading. What he wrote about so very well would have been lost without him. He was a part of the great machine of C&O’s Logan District operations when this region was the most productive coal area on the C&O–he knew it firsthand. The book finally shares his memories and research in one publication.”
The publication Chesapeake & Ohio Logan, West Virginia Subdivision may be ordered online from ChessieShop.com or from the C&O Historical Society’s Business Office & Archive, which is open Monday through Friday from 9 AM – 5 PM and may be contacted by telephone at 540-862-2210 or by email at cohs@cohs.org. The book is also available in the C&O Railway Heritage Center’s gift shop, open from Tuesday through Sunday, 10 AM – 4 PM, at 705 Main Street, Clifton Forge, VA.
The C&OHS archive database is available online at archives.cohs.org. Updates and additional information can be found on Facebook under @cohs.org or on Instagram @ChessiesRoad.
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