Western Maryland Railway Fairmont Bingamon Branch

The Fairmont Bingamon Subdivision of the Western Maryland Railway connected the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s West Fork Subdivision at Hutchinson, West Virginia, with mines in the Bingamon Creek valley.

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The Fairmont Bingamon Branch of the Western Maryland Railway (WM) connected the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s (B&O) West Fork Subdivision at Hutchinson, West Virginia, with Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Company mines in the Bingamon Creek valley.

History

The Fairmont Bingamon Railway was organized on January 21, 1916, and incorporated that March to build an eight-mile railroad from the B&O at Hutchinson, West Virginia, to three coal mines at Wyatt. ^{3 8 9} Work on the line had already begun under the WM in 1915, before the subsidiary was formally organized. The railroad was completed and opened for operation on July 1, 1917. ⁹ On December 17, the WM assumed operation of the Fairmont Bingamon Railway and operated it as the Fairmont Bingamon Branch. ^{2 8 9} To reach the line, the WM maintained 79 miles of trackage rights over the B&O between Hutchinson and Bowest Junction, at the western end of the WM’s Connellsville Extension near Connellsville, Pennsylvania. ^{2 7}

In May 1916, the Monongahela Valley Traction Company, an interurban railway, arranged with the Western Maryland to electrify the Fairmont Bingamon Branch. ¹⁰ Under the arrangement, passenger service would be handled by electric interurban cars, while freight traffic would continue to be moved by steam power. On July 30, 1918, Monongahela Valley Traction began operating electric interurban passenger service over the Fairmont Bingamon Railway line.

The subdivision served a succession of coal operators in the Bingamon Creek valley, including Wyatt-Bingamon Coal, Producers Fuel, Bingamon Valley Coal, Pine Bluff Coal, Peora Coal, Bethlehem Coal, Howard Coal, Bingamon Gas Coal, Consolidation Coal, Dixie Coal, Clearwater Coal, Banner Coal, and Thomas Lowe Coal & Coke.

On August 21, 1942, the WM filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission to abandon a portion of the Fairmont Bingamon Branch from Wyatt to Pine Bluff. ¹ In 1947, Monongahela Valley Traction, by then part of Monongahela West Penn, converted its Fairmont-to-Weston interurban line to bus service, ending interurban operations over the Fairmont Bingamon Branch. ¹¹ The WM formally acquired the Fairmont Bingamon Railway by merger on January 20, 1950. ^{8 9}

On March 31, 1953, the Consolidation Coal Company opened the Williams No. 98 Mine near Long Run in the Pittsburgh seam. ⁵ The mine was named for Eugene Williams of Romney, who served as chairman of the WM’s board. The operation included a 558-foot conveyor and an eight-story processing plant. Raw coal was delivered to the preparation plant at a rate of 450 tons per hour, beginning at the rotary mine-car dump at the bottom of the slope. After being crushed to a five-inch top size, the coal was fed into a 15-foot-diameter Chance cone, which produced 278 tons of “float-kleen” coal per hour. The plant had a daily capacity of 8,500 tons, with a potential capacity of 15,000 tons, and the mine was estimated to contain 80 million tons of coal reserves.

In January 1976, the WM filed to abandon 1.84 miles of the Fairmont Bingamon Branch between the Williams Mine near Long Run and Pine Bluff. ⁴ The segment had not handled revenue traffic since 1963. As part of the abandonment proceedings, the Harrison County Parks and Recreation Commission expressed interest in acquiring the right-of-way for use as a linear park.

The Williams No. 98 Mine closed under Consolidation Coal Company in 1979. ⁶ In July 1982, the property was sold to the Peora Coal Company, which was later permitted to discharge slurry from the impoundment into a borehole in the former underground mine.

The line later passed through WM’s corporate successors. The WM had come under the control of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in 1967 and became part of the Chessie System, along with the Baltimore & Ohio and the C&O, in 1973. The WM was formally merged into the B&O in 1983.

The B&O, then operating the former Western Maryland properties, was granted authority in October 1984 to abandon the remaining 3.8 miles of the Fairmont Bingamon Branch between Hutchinson and Henshaw. ¹² By that time, no traffic had moved over the line for two years.

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Map

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Gallery

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Sources

1. Western Maryland Railway Company. 244 I.C.C. 810, Interstate Commerce Commission, 21 Aug. 1942.
2. Burns, Adam. “Western Maryland Railway: Map, Rosters, Logo, History.” American Rails, 1 Nov. 2024.
3. Interstate Commerce Commission Reports. Vol. 32, Interstate Commerce Commission, 1931.
4. Environmental Threshold Assessment Survey. Office of Proceedings, Interstate Commerce Commission, 1976.
5. “Williams Preparation Plant, Consolidation Coal Company.” West Virginia & Regional History Center.
6. Bailey, Clairene, Rodney A. Moore, and Michael J. Superfesky. Evaluation for Targe Energy d/b/a Coal Valley, LLC. United States Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining, 21 Apr. 2011.
7. Cook, Roger, and Karl Zimmermann. The Western Maryland Railway: Fireballs and Black Diamonds. Howell-North Books, 1981, pp. 49, 196.
8. Williams, Harold A. The Western Maryland Railway Story. Western Maryland Railway Company, 1952, pp. 103, 106.
9. Bulletin No. 85. The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, Mar. 1952, p. 23.
10. “Electrification of Short Lines for Passenger Service.” Electric Railway Journal, vol. 47, no. 21, McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., 20 May 1916, pp. 971–972.
11. Burns, Adam. “Monongahela West Penn Public Service Company (WV).” American Rails, 23 Jun. 2025.
12. “Western Maryland Railway Co. and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co.; Abandonment and Discontinuance of Service in Harrison and Marion Counties, WV; Exemption.” Federal Register, vol. 49, no. 210, 29 Oct. 1984, p. 43527. Docket Nos. AB-69 and AB-19.

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