Through the Coal Fields: The Development of the Norfolk & Western Railway Through Southwestern Virginia and Southern West Virginia, Including a Survey of Historic Tunnels and Bridges Along the Radford and Pocahontas Divisions

Details

• Corporate Creators:
  TRC Environmental Corporation
• Contributors:
  Van Dop, Jack ; Webb, Paul ; Henry, Geoffrey ; Jenkins, Ellen ; Paré, Matthew ; Olson, Heather ; Macek, Vince
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration. Eastern Federal Lands Highway Division
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Bridges Historic Preservation Railroads Railroad Tunnels Surveying Tunnels
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Right Statement:
  Public Domain
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States;West Virginia;Virginia;Ohio;Kentucky
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration. Eastern Federal Lands Highway Division
• Abstract:
  The federal government, through the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Eastern Federal Lands Highway Division, is providing funding for the Heartland Corridor rail clearance project. This project involves improvements and alterations to selected bridges and tunnels along Norfolk Southern (NS) Corporation’s Radford and Pocahontas Divisions in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, as well as several minor adjustments of overhead and rock slide fences (www.efl.fhwa.dot.gov/projects-heartland-corridor.aspx). The project corridor extends from Cowan, Virginia (NS Milepost 305.43) to Bull, West Virginia (NS N.A. 12.68). Construction activities for the project will consist of double-stack vertical and horizontal clearance activities along the NS main line, which will be initiated and contracted by NS with oversight by the FHWA for those activities utilizing federal funds. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966, as amended, mandates the consideration of the effects to cultural resources (both archaeological and architectural) from any federally permitted, licensed, or funded undertaking, such as the Heartland Corridor project. Following consultation between the FHWA and the State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs) of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio—the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (VA SHPO), the West Virginia Division of Culture and History (WV SHPO), the Kentucky Heritage Council (KY SHPO), and the Ohio Historic Preservation Office (OH SHPO)—a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was developed to mitigate the adverse effects to historic resources from the Heartland Corridor project. (Although the project will adversely affect neither the railroad corridor nor any bridges or tunnels in Ohio, since the railroad corridor is considered a single property, the OH SHPO has been a participant in the consultation and is a signatory to the MOA.) The MOA was signed by the FHWA and the four consulting SHPOs in August 2007 (Appendix A). The activities stipulated in the MOA included an historic architectural survey of 112 bridges and tunnels (as well as four abandoned tunnels) along the NS main line between Cowan, Virginia, and Bull, West Virginia, and preparation of a general history of the rail corridor between these two points. According to the MOA this history should be a “written record of the general history, people, and companies involved in the railroad’s construction, maintenance, and ownership . . . based on research of the available records of the respective states [and] counties in the corridor and the Norfolk Southern Corporation.” Additional survey products were to include a photographic record and completed state historic inventory forms for the 116 historic resources along the project corridor, drawings of the portal openings for five tunnels (Cowan, Cooper, Pembroke, Williamson, and Big Sandy No. 4), and mapping of all surveyed resources on labeled sections of USGS 7.5-minute quadrangle maps. The historic architectural survey of 114 bridges and tunnels in the project corridor in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky was completed in 2007 (Table 1). The abandoned Big Four Tunnel #1, located near Mile Post 394.24, has been “daylighted” and is no longer extant, and therefore was not recorded as part of this survey. In addition, a modern ballast deck bridge at Mile Post 361.48 in Bluefield, Virginia was not recorded at that time. That bridge was eventually surveyed in 2009, along with an additional bridge at Mile Post 362.85.
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  Federal Highway Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:589fad6ab2da90ba57042c44665ea1cf76c39c20705db08df5bcbde77df8525f81653d70ddd7b21dcf49bd337c35042fa8febda212bcd3ed356ec8f16851676a
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/75177/dot_75177_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 20.50 MB ]