The Oneida & Western Railroad, known as the Oneida & Western or O&W, was two different railroads. The first was a short

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

and goods hauling railroad that ran between

Oneida Oneida may refer to: Native American/First Nations * Oneida people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois Confederacy * Oneida language * Oneida Indian Nation, based in New York * Oneida Na ...

and

Jamestown, Tennessee Jamestown is a city in, and the county seat of, Fentress County, Tennessee, United States. The population of the city was 1,959 at the 2010 census. History Jamestown was established in 1823 as a county seat for Fentress County. It was incorporate ...

. It was prosperous during the 1920s, hauling coal and

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

and provided groceries and mail to residents along the O&W in the remote

gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

s and hollows of Scott and Fentress counties. The line also provided a passenger service that at the time, was the most efficient way to travel. In the 1940s the Wolf Creek Dam project was a ray of hope for the O&W, but

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

ended that hope and the project was lost along with the large investment made by the railroad's owners. Abandonment was announced in 1946, however the Jewell Ridge Mine purchased the railroad and held on to it until 1953 when abandonment was officially requested due to sagging business in the area. The last train operated on March 31, 1954. Local citizens opposed the railroad's abandonment, however the implementation of better highway and trucks were a considerable competitor, local citizens and former employees blamed poor management as the cause for abandonment. The second, Oneida & Western Transportation (OWTX), was a railroad with no track. In the 1970s, the Shamrock Coal Company was having trouble with its primary hauler, the

Louisville & Nashville The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States. Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of the ...

, unable to supply empty cars fast enough to meet demand. Increased haulage rates and inadequate maintenance made things more difficult for Shamrock. The coal company responded by buying its own cars and locomotives, built to L&N specifications, in 1979. These were run as L&N-trains by L&N crews, but gave Shamrock lower rates for transportation and a guaranteed supply of trains/cars. The name Oneida and Western was resurrected for the attractive two-tone green trains. The coal was exclusively sold and hauled to a South Carolina Electric & Gas power plant in Wateree. After the L&N was bought by

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

in 1987, and Shamrock was bought by ''Sun Coal'' in the same year, the changed situation rendered the dedicated O&W-trains unnecessary. Sun Coal and CSX agreed to a new contract for "ordinary" trains, and the O&W-equipment was sold.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oneida Western Railroad Defunct Tennessee railroads