Kanawha River Railroad Begins Operations

The Kanawha River Railroad is out and running.

The Watco Companies subsidiary began operating 308 miles, which includes the former West Virginia Secondary of Norfolk Southern, on July 31.

KRR plans to run trains over former NS track between Columbus and Mullens, West Virginia. Much of that traffic will be chemicals and coal.

Operations are based at Dickinson Yard near Charleston, West Virginia.

Trains magazine reported that on the first day of operation three crews reported to work at Dickinson, two of which worked in the yard while a third took a loaded coal train to Elmore Yard on the former Virginian mainline.

Light power moved north to Point Pleasant, Ohio, to pick up interchange cars from CSX and a local switched customers along the Kanawha River north of Charleston.

The magazine noted that traffic on the former NS territory was unusually busy for a Sunday and that might become a regular occurrence.

KRR officials have said their objective is to “bring life back to the railroad industry” in the West Virginia-Ohio region by building up freight business and increasing carloads.

The West Virginia Secondary within Ohio is expected to reopen in the coming weeks after NS idled it last Friday and shifted traffic to other routes.

For now, KRR will be operating six days a week with most trains originating and terminating in Dickinson Yard.

The last NS train from Dickinson Yard left on July 30. It had 50 cars and a caboose that had been used for work train service.

NS continues to run trains south and east of Elmore Yard and handles local mine runs on the Winding Gulf Branch near Mullens and all trains operating toward Gilbert Yard.

Watco has assigned to the KRR four and six-axle EMD GP and SD-type locomotives while leasing seven EMD SD60s from NS for coal train service.

Tags: Kanawha River Railroad, Norfolk Southern, NS West Virginia Secondary, Watco, Watco Companies, Watco Transportation Services