The Kingsville Tunnel No. 5 is an abandoned railroad tunnel along the Coal & Coke Railway (C&C), a former railroad between Charleston and Elkins, West Virginia.
The Coal & Coke Railway (C&C) is a former railroad between Charleston and Elkins, West Virginia. It began as the Charleston, Clendenin & Sutton Railroad in 1891, reorganized as the Coal & Coke Railway in 1906, and leased by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1917 before being merged fully in 1934 with the Charleston to Elkins route designated the Charleston Division. The erasure of large-scale timbering, the slow decline of the coal industry in the central part of the state, and the closure of a refinery in Falling Rock led the B&O to discontinue service along the Charleston Division at different times since 1941.
The railroad began sharing trackage rights with the Western Maryland closer to Elkins in the 1940s and abandoned its mainline between Adrian and Midvale in 1941, which included the Kingsville Tunnel No. 1. It then closed its former mainline between Midvale and Roaring Creek Junction in 1972 following the closure of several mines. The B&O then tried to abandon much of its line south of Gassaway, although portions were reprieved by Conrail and the Elk River Railroad. Ultimately, the closure of a mine along the revived Buffalo Creek Railroad led much of the remaining track south of Burnsville to be used just for car storage and repairs at Gassaway until that ceased in 2022. Today, much of the former Coal & Coke Railway between Gassaway and Charleston is being redeveloped into a linear state park open for recreational use.
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Add Yours →Interesting as I grew up in Adrian, my grandfather was from there