The Coaling Station, Thurmond, WV.
Maybe the most striking old structure in Thurmond is the coaling station. Built by Fairbanks Morse Co. in 1922, the 16 column, reinforced concrete-building literally stands tall above everything else: taller than the trees, taller than the other buildings on the old commercial row (what’s left of commercial row), looming over the actors in Matewan.
I know enough about the working of steam locomotives to know that such locomotives require tons of coal and thousands of gallons of water to operate. I’ve seen photos of water towers and tanks being used and so understand that very large spigot-like appliances allowed water to be transferred from storage to locomotive tenders, but I wasn’t sure how the coal was handled between bulk haulage and its transfer to locomotive tenders.
The water storage is long since gone from Thurmond (CSX removed the tank and standpipe over 30 years ago), but once upon a time, water was stored near where the post office stands today.
The water tank (on stanchions) and standpipe (center) with the coaling tower in the distance; the water column (left foreground) allowed the stored water to be dispensed into a locomotive tender. [1]
I figured there was some way of getting coal into the body of the coaling station tower, and that some manner of chute allowed it to be shifted to a tender, but I didn’t know this until I found drawings on the Library of Congress website, which featured descriptions of the workings alongside the drafted illustrations.
Interior cross-section view of the coaling station. [2]
Concrete coaling towers became fairly common on the larger rail road systems by the early 20th century, and that some mechanical means was provided for their operation seemed an easy surmise on the face of it, but it was still a minor revelation to see that the operation had been documented, an “ah-ha!” moment.
(Above) Coaling station in Frankfort, IN, at the old New York, Chicago & St Louis yard (the “Nickle Plate Road”) built in 1937. The site is now owned by Norfolk Southern, and demolishing the coaling station is likely too expensive to have done -- yet. [3] (Below) Thurmond, WV, coaling station drawing details:
At one time, track was inclined up to the center of the station, which allowed coal hopper cars to be positioned on a bridge, there to dump a load of coal into a pit (gravity wins!). A hopper car dropping a coal load is circled above. [2]
The track bridge still exists:
as seen in this photo [3] though the inclined tracks leading to it were removed in the early 1990s.
After the coal was in the pit (dropping down what was essentially an industrial sized-funnel) it was sent through a crusher (to create what I suppose was a product of fairly uniform size, important for efficient burning) then sent up to the body of the station on an elevator, a vertical conveyor -- an endless loop of buckets on a chain:
Detail from the cross-section [2]
(Above)The concrete enclosure of the elevator occupying the space within 4 of the supporting columns, beyond the track bridge. [3] (Below) Drawing detail; the building footprint is outlined in green, the elevator, in red. [2]
Once shifted “upstairs,” the coal, up to 500 tons of it, waited in one of two bins until a trainman needed to fuel up a locomotive.
(Above) detail of drawing showing articulated coal transfer chutes. [2] The “sanding station” (arrow) provided dry sand which was also transferred to locomotives via the tower. (Below) photo showing the station with coaling chutes still in place, though these might be of later years. [4]
The articulated chutes deployed from either side of the station and pivoted so that the coal could slide down into a locomotive tender.
Here, the remnants of the operation can still be seen in situ on the station; the sheaves and trap doors were probably not seen as hazardous to continuing rail operation, while otherwise useless coal chutes might collapse on the tracks -- blocking diesel-powered train movement (entropy and gravity win). [3]
Rewatching Matewan two things occurred to me regarding the town and the trackage: there weren’t enough trains passing through, and the coaling chutes on the coaling station were conspicuously missing, gone before filming started -- the kinds of details that don’t necessarily add to the story being told, but I noticed. I also understand that running steam locomotives with a few cars just for background purposes is expensive, and CSX probably wouldn’t have allowed coal chutes to be put back on the tower. Le sigh -- I just have to suspend my disbelief.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (LOC) collection: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey (HABS/HAER)
[1] LOC: General view of Thurmond: Jet Lowe, 1988.
[2] LOC: HABS/HAER drawings, 1988; detail cropping and highlights by R. Jake Wood, 2021.
[3] Photos by R. Jake Wood, 2014 and 2021.
[4] National Park Service on-site information placard, photo and highlight by R. Jake Wood, 2021; original image attribution unknown.
