NS Pocahontas Division 6/4/14: Heavy Mountain Railroading

After a restful night in the hotel in Bluefield, it was time for Jordan and I to meet Ed, a local railfan on the Piedmont born in this area, and Chase, a local railfan to the Pokey. Besides the less-than-perfect weather and slow traffic at times, we got a good feel for the Pocahontas Division's current operations with the major decline of coal traffic. Our plans were compromised a small bit after the engineer on 96Z at Farm falsely reported that we were trespassing in the gauge, but that gave us an opportunity to explore one of the major branches. Falls Mills, VA 8:20am - NS 742 Coopers, WV 9:15am - NS 233 Maybeury, WV 10:03am - NS J24 Farm, WV 11:21am - NS 96Z Roderfield, WV 12:18pm - NS J1T 12:30pm - NS 755 Iager, WV 12:56pm - NS 17M Hull, WV 1:18pm - NS 755 (again) Hurley, VA (Buchanan Branch) 6:07pm - NS 81R Thacker, WV 6:48pm - Hopper Train Matewan, WV 7:25pm - NS 272 After a good day's worth of action and visiting several of the many great shots to shoot the Pokey, Ed and Chase headed back into Virginia, and Jordan and I had a long drive to Beckley, WV ahead of us. This would put us in prime position to see some heavy mountain railroading of another flavor the next day...