The Mann's Creek Railroad was a
narrow gauge railroad that operated during the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries in
Fayette County, West Virginia
Fayette County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,488. Its county seat is Fayetteville. It is part of the Beckley, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area in Southern West Virginia.
Histor ...
, United States.
History
The Mann's Creek Railroad was constructed in 1886 to haul coal and lumber for the Babcock Coal and Coke Company, which owned and operated the line.
The line followed Mann's Creek, a tributary of the
New River,
from the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...
's mainline at
Sewell for approximately to the community of
Clifftop.
Due to the area's rugged terrain, construction of the line required numerous retaining walls and demolition of numerous cliffs. A high, long timber trestle was constructed over Glade Creek on a sharp
horseshoe curve where the line deviated from the Mann's Creek in order to gain elevation.
At Clifftop were the Babcock Coal and Coke Company's coal mines,
which the railroad served by hauling coal down to 193
beehive coke ovens along the C&O mainline at Sewell.
References
{{Reflist
Defunct West Virginia railroads
Railway companies established in 1886
Railway companies disestablished in 1955
3 ft gauge railways in the United States
Narrow gauge railroads in West Virginia