Is Crude the new Coal?

The former C&O mainline in West Virginia and its increasing crude oil business

 As a relatively young photographer in the hobby, I’ve watched and made pictures of trains for slightly less than ten years. One of my initial interests was studying commodities rolling by the aging Chesapeake & Ohio passenger depot in Saint Albans, W.Va.

In-fact, my train watching consisted of a pen and paper years before I even considered purchasing a camera. As a West Virginia native nestled along the Kanawha River in a suburb of our capital city, of Charleston, I was in a relatively convenient location for both mainline and branch line action found on what were once C&O steam-era coal producing subdivisions. 

As a young, impressionable kid at the time, I quickly realized that coal was the dominating commodity in West Virginia and that coal was an important aspect of West Virginia’s economy. And that it was here to stay….

As 100 car unit trains of mixed lease hoppers streamed through the crossovers in downtown St. Albans in 2006, a location that was once protected by as many as 10 C&O cantilever style signals, it gave me a sense of appreciation for railroading, the coal industry, and the locomotives and logistics of moving such a magnitude of West Virginia-mined coal over a section of century-old mainline.

Fast-forwarding nearly a decade later, and the coal industry continues to march on, though under more scrutiny and increased regulations and mandates. Coal remains an important natural resource to West Virginia, despite oil and gas drilling rapidly expanding statewide. International customers keep export coal in high demand throughout Appalachia and West Virginia. While domestic coal has gradually decreased in the coal-fired power plant industry due to regulations and restrictions, domestic and international customers keep West Virginia coal in demand. 

In recent years, and perhaps most evident in the last two years regionally, the transporting of crude oil from the Bakken oil fields to eastern coastal destinations has increased rail traffic on some of West Virginia’s Class I main lines. Most recently, a contract established by Plains All American Pipeline and the company’s recently opened crude oil storage and refined products facilities has introduced unit crude oil trains to CSX’s once coal dominated former Chesapeake & Ohio main line.

Since the opening of the facility in December 2013, an estimated 10-12 unit trains have been delivered to the Yorktown, Va., facility with consistent car counts of about 100 loads per train. While the coal is still predominant in tonnage and train volume, the crude oil trains are a higher priority movement across CSX’s Huntington Division with coal and occasional grain trains delayed on single track sections to allow the passing of eastbound crude oil loads.

While the statements conducted are merely from an observational perspective, the introduction to crude oil to a once coal exclusive mainline and the apparent success in a short period may result in expansion and increase in frequency in the long term, one may think. The route of the former C&O and Norfolk & Western through West Virginia prove important arteries to the Mid-Atlantic region with their direct access to coastal ports in the export coal industry. With capacity and efficiency, perhaps crude could be sticking around in Appalachia and making itself a rather competitive commodity to CSX and Norfolk Southern. 

Empty crude oil train, CSX K081 returns west through St. Albans, W.Va. after unloading at Yorktown's costal refinery on the late afternoon of February 18th, 2014.