Worked some more on the wood shed for Rima yesterday afternoon. It was 6 hours of digging and wrestling with 2"x6"s that didn't want to go where they should. But in the end, with the help of a 8 pound sledge, it all got put together the way it should. Now it's time to strip the old shingles off the roof and put some new sheathing and shingles back on it. Once that is all done we can concentrate on cutting up some of the huge pile of timber we have stacked up, and then storing it away for use next winter. With any luck we should have a full woodshed, about 6 full cords, cut and stacked by the time I leave a month from now.
    So that is the plan for this afternoon, and it is looking like it will be a nice day to work on it all. Sunny and warm with maybe just a touch too much humidity in the air. It's certainly not like being in Colorado where the humidity is often so low that you don't actually sweat. But at least here you have those big pools of under arm sweat to remind you that it's time to drink more water.
   Not much else going on at the moment. Still waiting for the FORD dealer to call me back and tell me that my new truck mirror has arrived and that I need to make an appointment to get it installed. I'm hoping it will still be sometime this week yet. Will also need to take off for town and pick up more construction supplies for the shed and some more fence work, but probably won't get around to that until tomorrow. For now though, here are a few photo's from our trip to W. Virginia last weekend. These are from the town of Thurmond, a near ghost town situated along the New River just upstream from Fayetteville. It use to be a railroad hub during the heydays of coal and steam, Now it's just a sleepy reminder of what once was.

Thurmond W. Virginia along the New River - April 3, 2014

The only real way into the town, other than rail, is to drive down a narrow canyon road on the south side of the river and cross over it on this single lane bridge. The railroad spur use to go to some coal mines on the south side of the river, but from the rust on the top of the rails it looks like it has been a while since any train has gone up them.

Another view showing how narrow the auto and railroad bridges are. You can see that spring has finally arrived.

The old station at Thurmond is one of the few original buildings to survive and was restored a few years back. You can actually still catch an Am Track train at the station twice a day. Once east bound in the morning and then again west bound late at night.

Looking west, or down river, towards what remains of the town. During it's heyday this town had more than 80,000 passengers passing through it each year. More than 20, mostly coal, trains ran through, and the town had all the social amenities associated with towns that were much larger including; hotels, banks, butchers, jewelry stores, post office, restaurants etc. It was also a major steam engine repair site with full engine facilities located to the left of where the remaining tracks are today. Now a days there are only a few buildings left standing including the triple track coaling station you see in the background.

Still lots of coal train traffic along this line. I was surprised that one of them didn't roll by as we wandered the town, but there was one waiting on the siding just around the far corner.

There are three brick buildings still standing in what would of been the main area of the old town. Most of the rest of them either burned down or were torn down for some reason or another. This is just a narrow alley way between two of them. The other two were built even closer together.

Most of the concrete coaling tower still remains. You can tell this was a major stop from the fact that they built this one out of concrete instead of wood. It also had the ability to service 3 tracks at once, with coal chutes for two tracks on this side and chutes for one track on the other side. The opening in the middle was for another set of rails where trains with full coal cars would pull through to dump their loads into an underground pit. From there a conveyor system would lift the coal to the top of the tower where it could then be loaded by gravity into the locomotive tenders of other trains.

You can see the chute openings a little better on this view. The two lower openings would of been used to fill tenders parked on the rails closest to the coaling tower, while the upper set of chutes would of been long enough to reach over the first set of tracks to load tenders on the second set of tracks. It must of been a very bustling place at one time.

A view of the remaining brick buildings. The one on the left was one of the banks in Thurmond and the other two were retail stores. Just to the left of the bank would of been the biggest and best hotel in town. With running water and lights in every room it also had a grand ballroom where dances were held as well as one of the best restaurants in the area. It burned down in either the 50's or 60's.

A picture of Rima near an old stone wall. She sure makes my coat look better than it usually does.

One last picture looking down the line.

*