Post by gp30 on Jan 30, 2013 14:22:33 GMT -5
Welcome to the new website for the Gulf & Ohio Midland Railway. The
G&OM is a “private road” HO-scale model railroad layout. Set in the
mountains of West Virginia, the railroad depicts what the original
Little Kanawha River Railroad might have looked like had it survived
into the mid 20th Century.
The Little Kanawha Subdivision of the Gulf & Ohio Midland Railway
is an east-to-west line between Ravenswood, WV and Gassaway, WV. This
line is not exactly a bridge route between the B&O Ohio River Sub
and the B&O Elk River Sub, but the G&OM does interchange with
the B&O at both ends. The G&OM bought the right of way from
Elizabeth, in Wirt County, East to Gassaway from the B&O, but could
not gain access to the property through Parkersburg on trackage rights,
so the G&OM had to build.
Construction began in 1934 and the line was finished by 1936. The
line was laid with recycled 85 lb rail and was relaid with 100AS and
110RE rail after WWII. By the 1960′s, traffic on the Little Kanawha Sub
was drying up. Logging had all but disappeared from the valley, carbon
black plants had all but disappeared and coal mines were closing for
good. The future of the line was bleak; traffic was decreasing, and
years of deferred maintenance was catching up with management. Would the
line survive?
Click the link in my signature for the G&OM website.
