Quickly, I found myself becoming more curious in my writing. I enjoyed what I was reading and in turn, I liked writing about more things. As I learned about different railroad companies, car builders, regulatory standards or international rail news, my perspective changed and my interests diversified. Even as my interests varied and traveling to different places in the country took precedence over hometown railfanning, a part of me always wanted to have a byline associated with my hometown.
Now, that’s a pretty obtainable goal if you live in Chicago or New York where there is always something to report. For me, writing news stories about West Virginia is even more common than my hometown. That’s because I come from Nitro – a name derived from nitroglycerin and a small community built by the federal government to support the war efforts in World War I. That sounds interesting – right? The railroad here is straight forward. Norfolk Southern operates an old New York Central line extending south from Columbus, Ohio to near Charleston, W.Va. Business is made up primarily of chemical traffic and other similar industries along the Kanawha River – a contrast to most neighboring coal operations. To me, the railroad in my hometown is now less interesting than the likes of Tehachapi Loop or the Chicago L and the Rio Grande through the Rockies. And that’s understandable – but my interest in trains and railroad journalism blossomed from within the boundaries of zip code more than 10 years ago because of my initial exposure to the trains of Nitro.
A lot has changed in a decade; our railroad landscape in West Virginia has suffered from declines in coal and our state’s economy isn’t much better. Even in reporting on local rail news in the state, the topics were never very encouraging. As Norfolk Southern mothballed the northernmost part of my hometown rail, the West Virginia Secondary, earlier this year, I knew my chances of ever getting to talk about my hometown in a news story didn’t look promising. And I feared more of the same for our neighboring rail lines.
That remained my thought process until this week when I learned that of all railroads to get a new lease on life, my hometown route would host the newest, and one of the largest, short line-operated routes in the state of West Virginia. Among a plague of discouraging rail news for the mountain state, Watco’s acquisition of the West Virginia Secondary outweighs it all. With the company’s track record in marketing services to local businesses, Watco’s takeover later this year has the potential to be a breath of fresh air for our local rail economy. Plans call for the railroad to re-activate the 100-mile section of track that is currently idled – and work on expanding service levels to existing and potentially new customers. Watco will have a new presence in West Virginia in a rail environment that is suitable for a short line railroad and Norfolk Southern won’t have the burden of operating a route that isn’t practical for a Class I railroad environment. It’s a win-win for all – and hey, I get to put Nitro on the News Wire. Happy Friday, all.
To see the News Wire story on this topic, view this link: http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2016/05/20-watco-to-acquire-ns-west-virginia-secondary-portion-of-virginian-route
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