Painter Series 5: Norfolk Southern Pocahontas Division (1990)

I once frequented the “Pokie” because of its heavy traffic and the old N&W CPL signals. Obama’s War on Coal decimated not only the coal traffic but that entire region. Every town I go through there now, is a ghost town. When the CPL signals finally dell, I stopped visiting the line.

The 6591 Horn sounds like the wind of an Category 5 Hurricane!

does any 1 know if the railroad bridge that crosses over interstate 77 was a n.w or n.s brige from the old coal hauling daysi belkeive its in virginia

LOOKA DEM HIGH HOODS!!!!! Choo Choo!!

Great video! I wonder who recorded it?!

I dunno... since they "raised" the tunnels for double-stacks, this division still gets a fair amount of traffic.

WV Appalachian coal drags are why I got into trains in the first place. NS and Chessie roots. Great video!

My dad grew up in Kimball and I have some family that lives/lived in Bluefield. I REALLY enjoyed this! This is awesome!

Love the dash 7s and dash 8 units. So nostalgic

I know the Norfolk Southern Pocahontas District between Williamson and the summit of Bluefield, West Virginia.

I spent the last three days watching this series, what a great time to be taking videos!!! The transition from 4-axle to 6-axle, with all the different variations, and interesting lashups was a pleasure to see. Not to mention, the entire lack of graffiti that would eventually envelop the freight industry. I am lucky to be located near an NS secondary where a handful of former SOU units pass through. Conrail Shared Assets has the occasional high hood also, which are my favorites. This series is now one of my favorites to put on as background while running my own trains on my layout.

I'll happily take better air quality and not destroying our planet over some coal trains. Appalachia should figure out another industry that works for them.

Thanks Obama for drastically reducing rail traffic 🙄

It's neat and exciting for us your Neat Channel show casing Shortlines...We thick you are doing a wonderful service to show potential. RAIL Customers to perhaps relocate aside their Tracks.......very good 👍👌🤔

The good ole Pokey

Why did you delete the original video of csx 9553 at SARM.

Thank you, Drayton, for digitizing another Ed Painter Series video. Watching the trains was very enjoyable.

I’d love to see more of the Pokey from this series if possible.

The decline of steam coal was primarily driven by natural gas. Some power plants closed because of the Mercury and Air Toxics rules, but by far the biggest driver of the shift away from coal for electricity generation was cheap, abundant natural gas.

Nice Video
🍀👍🇮🇳👍🍀

I’m glad Ed has vids on the pokey. Brings back lots of childhood memories visiting my family in the area. The area looks way different nowadays. I’m also glad you touch on how the line was electrified. Can’t wait for more vids on the line if he has them.

this line on the Pocahontas division is still A great place to rail fan today

Another great series by Mr. Painter enjoy watching them all and sharing good old fashioned railroading to us .

I love hi hoods .thanks for sharing all this with us an shout out to Ed painter for documenting saving an allowing us to see this wonderful history

I've always really enjoyed watching High Hoods at work, but I would imagine they weren't the most convenient units to operate either switching or over the road.

ChainsawN&W1218, glad to see the issue with the video was fixes really enjoy the Ed Painter series and especially in W VA and VA since I live in Galax VA not to far from Radford, really enjoyed the high hoods, EMD and GE power and all the vintage auto parts box cars, Leslie and Nathan air horns been years since I've been to Bluefield to film,We usually film around Radford, Christiansburg, Walton, Montgomery Tunnel and Roanoke, Wytheville and Rural Retreat some,last time they ran the 611 on main lines We filmed Her at Montgomery Tunnel, have also filmed in Greenville SC, that's where My Mom and Me were born and My Dad was in the Army from VA and has family down there now, Great video AC!👍🇺🇲🛤🚂