On the horseshoe curve at Nottingham. Meadow River Lumber Company Heisler #6 slowly works her way south on the C&O Greenbrier Division, dragging some freight loads from Durbin to Cass. She's seen here negotiating the sweeping horseshoe curve, about 100 yards north of Milepost 92, in the tiny hamlet of Nottingham, WV, on a sunny spring afternoon. I'm told that the small wooden building on the far side of the tracks is an old, single-room schoolhouse, although I have no idea if it is still active. Over the entire, 15-mile stretch of track linking Durbin to Cass, WV, there are perhaps 2-3 small settlements like Nottingham, each of which has, at most, 4-5 homes and is linked to the outside world only by a narrow dirt road, and this rail line, neither of which sees much traffic at all. Interestingly, there electrical boxes on the sides of the homes and even this little school building, although there are no organized electric lines anywhere in sight. This being Pocahontas County, and a designated "RF quiet zone" because of the nearby Greenbank National Radio Astronomy Observatory, there are no TV or radio stations anywhere nearby, and of course, cell phones are nothing but paper weights here.
Scenes depicting steam operations on the old C&O Greenbrier Division between Cass and Durbin, WV, featuring Moore-Keppel Climax #3 and Meadow River Heisler #6.
