Multi Shots from the trail.

JayPo

JayPo

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1border4manu

1border4manu

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TripleB

TripleB

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@TripleB:

What is or was the purpose of the two massive wire reels in photo #2?
That's how the old coal mines got the coal off the mountain. They would bring the coal out of the mines in small cars to a tipple that would have been over top of those cable lines. Dump into a larger car. Once the larger car was full they would send it down the mountain to another tipple, where it would be loaded on a train. As a full car was going down a empty car would be coming up. I know where several of these old inclines are but this is the only one that still has the drums left.
 
TripleB

TripleB

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That's how the old coal mines got the coal off the mountain. They would bring the coal out of the mines in small cars to a tipple that would have been over top of those cable lines. Dump into a larger car. Once the larger car was full they would send it down the mountain to another tipple, where it would be loaded on a train. As a full car was going down a empty car would be coming up. I know where several of these old inclines are but this is the only one that still has the drums left.
Here is a picture of that actual incline from the Roaches Creek/Dean mines. This is the bottom end near the railroad. It's still a long ways up to where the drums are at.
60 vi

And another from years later after the mines was shut down.
56 vi
 
HBarlow

HBarlow

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Got it, thanks.

Were Tennessee coal mines verticall and deep underground?

As best I can determine, West Virginia mines were usually horizontal, deep into a hillside but generally not deep vertically.

There's an Exhibition Coal Mine nearby in Beckley open to the public for a modest ticket fee as a tourist adventure. I've visited it several times when we had guests from out of state. I found it interesting and somewhat educational.

 
TripleB

TripleB

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Had to google that and get the coordinates.Very cool.
Pretty decent article about this mines.

35 vi
 
HBarlow

HBarlow

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I'm a transplanted Texan, a newcomer to WV. I find the coal mines and miners interesting and sad. Almost all the adult males I've met or spoken with here in southern WV have a linkage to the mines. Either they worked in the mins themselves or a brother, uncle, cousin, or their father and grandfather earned their living in the mines.

The history of WV is filled with numerous coal mine explosions and miners who died in the mines. Almost all the men in many remote rural areas worked in the mines so when a coal mine explosion occurred, most of the male population of the area were killed in one single tragic event.
 
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