Duckunder pictures: Bothersome Bottom Bituminous & York Fork Smokeless mines complete

Here is the history of the two mining operations:

 

History of York Fork Coal Fields

 

DISCOVERY OF COAL ALONG THE YORK FORK BRANCH

 

In the early 1880s (date uncertain), a trapper pursuing beavers along the York Fork Branch of the Anas River was camping on nearby high ground curiously named “Bothersome Bottom” and discovered coal seams emanating from the rocky outcrops of the mountain not far from the creek.  He used some of the loose coal for his campfire and eventually reported his find.  This soon led prospectors to the area where they located several rich veins of notably high grade, low-sulfur bituminous coal.  By 1885 a number of miners were simultaneously chipping away at the coal seams easily accessible at or near ground level.

 

GENESIS OF THE BOTHERSOME BOTTOM BITUMINOUS MINING COMPANY

 

Following a spate of claims disputes ultimately resolved in a contentious 1888 county courtroom battle, the Bothersome Bottom Bituminous Mining Company managed to wrest legal control of the land by virtue of a questionable deed transaction that detractors claimed was the result of a payoff to county officials.  Some said elected officials were among the mine’s owners, but nothing was proved.  In any event, the County Sheriff enforced the local judge’s writ giving BBB sole rights to mine coal in the area by running off pick-and-shovel miners who had been carting the rich coal out of Bothersome Bottom across the narrow York Fork Branch valley by pack mule trains.

 

BBB BRINGS GOOD FORTUNE TO THE TENACIOUS DUCKUNDER TERMINAL RAILWAY

 

The Bothersome Bottom Bituminous Mining Company was able to utilize the winding water level mule route along York Fork Branch to build a connecting rail spur from the mine out to what was fast becoming the coal mainline of the Duckunder Terminal Railway (DUTRY). 

 

The DUTRY had originated as a coal and passenger rail and marine terminal operation in Norfolk, but, with no real mileage of its own west of the tidewater region, extended into West Virginia by an elaborate set of trackage rights agreements with several railroads with connecting rail lines to coal country. Dissatisfied with providing only “last mile” rail service to bigger carriers, the DUTRY determined to gain a larger share of revenues for itself by originating and carrying coal from mine to market.  It was a bold vision for such a relatively small operation. That the DUTRY was able to secure long-distance trackage rights was a credit to its cut-throat control of coal and passenger terminal operations in the Norfolk area.  Only the N&W was eventually able to overcome the DUTRY’s powerful lock on local tidewater political bosses to build its own facilities. 

 

Once in West Virginia on other railroads’ tracks, the DUTRY constructed its own mainline into the richest coal mining areas with a network of mine branches to feed it.  The York Fork Branch branch to the Bothersome Bottom Bituminous mining operation was one such connection, and it proved to be an especially valuable source of traffic, as the coal was easily mined, plentiful from at least five major veins, and considered among the very highest grade of bituminous available (high carbon and few impurities). 

 

YORK FORK SMOKELESS HORNS IN

 

The high yield and high quality of the BBB operation were widely envied by other mines, and other rail carriers coveted the Duckunder’s exclusive access to the prized tonnage.  York Fork coal was always in demand, even during wild market swings, and its prices were always at a premium.  This assured both the mine and the railroad consistent profits.  Coal was so easily accessible in the York Fork area that the BBB mine never felt the need to invest in modernizing its facilities. Doing so would have expanded its capacity.  Their low cost of production contributed to very high margins; the flip side was that as demand continued to rise, BBB’s increasingly antiquated capacity failed to keep up.  This, too, did not go unnoticed.

 

In 1898 several railroads, including the N&W, C&O, NYC, and PRR, seeing unmet opportunity in the high demand/low capacity of the rich York Fork coal fields, secretly helped to bankroll a new mining company called York Fork Smokeless (YFS) to compete with Bothersome Bottom Bituminous.  Those railroads had by then grown to be giants, with considerable political clout in Virginia, West Virginia, and in Washington, DC. 

 

First, though, they would have to gain access to the Bothersome Bottom area along the York Fork Branch.  Some opined that WV officials were paid off to ally with them.  However it occurred, a new quit-claim deed was produced that effectively negated the BBB’s always-thin land rights to the area.  The BBB and the DUTRY sued and fought the new deed, itself as flimsy as the BBB’s, all the way to the West Virginia Supreme Court. 

 

The fact that the quit-claim deed had been conveyed by a 91 year old man whose family had been pioneers in that part of West Virginia lent credence to its provenance.  However, the old man soon died, and his only child, a daughter, had mysteriously come into a great deal of money and suddenly left the jurisdiction for a fine house in San Francisco, later destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.  The heiress survived and emigrated with her lover to Shanghai, never to be heard from again and leaving no other relatives. Thus without access to direct evidentiary testimony, the WV Supreme Court—pressured by competing interests from both sides—decided to split the baby.  Both claims were decreed valid, allowing BBB to continue its operation but to let York Fork Smokeless set up its own operation immediately adjacent, even to mine in the same rich veins. This set in motion an inevitable conflict which was not to be reconciled for eleven years.

 

Because the DUTRY joined with BBB in the lawsuit, the other railroads had counter-sued demanding trackage rights over DUTRY if YFS prevailed, and now those, too, were granted.  The Duckunder would have to allow the N&W and C&O direct access to its cramped and narrow York Fork Branch branch to haul out coal mined from the YFS operation.  Things had suddenly become very complicated for both the BBB mine and the DUTRY.

 

The winning litigants who controlled the York Fork Smokeless interests were predominately very well-to-do Wall Street white-shoe investors with palatial homes and regal lifestyles in northern New Jersey.  None had ever set foot in a mine or been near West Virginia, but that didn’t stop them from designing York Fork Smokeless facilities that suited their remote fancy about what a proper modern coal mine should look like.  They decided as a group that the usual black, sooty appearance of mines and tipples was not conducive to good marketing, and so they directed that the facilities should all be painted a bright canary yellow.  That would give the impression that their products were not only smokeless but devoid of dust or soot.  Ubiquitous coal-fired industries and boilers of the era were associated with clouds of dirty black dust that got into every pore of one’s body and every fiber of one’s wearable fabrics. 

 

York Fork Smokeless owners also wanted a clear differential between the decrepit, poorly-maintained and entirely black buildings of the original Bothersome Bottom Bituminous mine and their own brand new facilities.  Appearances would matter when they sought to sell their product, even though identical to what was being taken from the ground by BBB next door.  Confident now that they had a strong and lasting foothold on the York Fork’s superior coal seams, they proceeded to build the prettiest coal tipple anyone had ever seen.

 

LAWSUITS FLY; HOGTOE HOLLOW OPENS; BBB ULTIMATELY VICTORIOUS

 

The formerly cozy and extremely profitable partnership between the BBB and DUTRY was now characterized by chronic conflict, dissention, railcar congestion, vandalism, and occasional violence.  Although life had always been cheap in the coal industry, the dangers of mining reached new peaks.  With BBB and YFS forces mining furiously side by side in the same coal seams, safety took a back seat to production.  Cave-ins and deaths became common occurrences, with both mining companies losing personnel.  Locomotives and coal hoppers from all three rail carriers (DUTRY, C&O, N&W) clogged the York Fork Branch.  Derailments and accidents killed crew members competing to get their loads out on a regular basis until few railroaders were willing to work the branch.

 

Branch rail congestion worsened again when the C&O sponsored a third mine on the east side of York Fork Branch which called itself Hogtoe Hollow Semi-Anthracite.  The reference to being part anthracite coal was entirely incorrect—even preposterous—as the coal was and is bituminous.  But the name was a useful marketing ploy to focus on the high grade black diamonds of the area, and it paid off in distant cities where gullible customers were willing to pay double for the Hogtoe product.  Furthermore, the C&O secretly negotiated a separate trackage rights agreement with the DUTRY that gave its mine trains preference on the York Fork branch and over DUTRY’s mainline network to the C&O interchange points.  This side agreement had the unintended effect of souring C&O’s business relations with the N&W and heightened tensions and further disrupted routine operations among all three mines and all three railroads competing on the York Fork branch.  In hindsight, there can be little doubt that the opening of the Hogtoe Hollow Semi-Anthracite mine was the tipping point in favor of resolving the original conflict between the BBB and YFS mining interests.

 

Lawsuits and countersuits raged for years between Bothersome Bottom Bituminous and York Fork Smokeless interests.  Smug in their New York environs, the rich owners of YFS did not tend to local politics in West Virginia.  However, the BBB owners persisted in strengthening ties and relationships with county and state officials, including key judicial appointments and elections.  In 1909, eleven years after the York Fork Smokeless victory, the quit-claim deed on which it hinged was deemed invalid.  The absence of the heiress, presumably living in China, to testify to her father’s signature and prior property rights proved to be pivotal in negating the prior ruling.  York Fork Smokeless was ordered to vacate the property immediately and to turn the property over to Bothersome Bottom Bituminous.  The court deemed the value of the existing YFS facilities sufficient to compensate BBB for its 11 years of lost production, a sure sign that the judge harbored doubts about who really owned what interests. 

 

The New Jersey investors appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court again, but it refused to hear their case, and thus they lost their hold on the profitable York Fork coal.  Bothersome Bottom Bituminous thenceforth moved swiftly to occupy and manage the former York Fork Smokeless mine and tipple, taking great pleasure in allowing the once-bright yellow facilities to turn dingy gray and black as the years of coal dust accumulated.  It didn’t take long for the now-unified operation to reach new levels of output, making BBB owners even wealthier.  In an ironic turn of events, some later moved to northern New Jersey, eschewing their coal hollow, down-and-dirty West Virginia clodhopper roots for the dainty nouveau riche cold cucumber sandwich afternoon tea party set characteristic of Manhattan social rituals.

 

N&W, C&O TRACKAGE RIGHTS OVER DUTRY CONTINUE; N&W ACQUIRES THE DUTRY

 

Oddly, the court failed to vacate the trackage rights agreements that allowed N&W and C&O to access the York Fork Branch.  After the BBB prevailed over the YFS investors, both foreign railroads continued to serve their own and NYC and PRR interchange customers via the York Fork Branch branch.  However, relations among the three carriers calmed to agreeable and productive routines which lasted until the N&W bought the Duckunder Terminal Railway in 1948.  It became the DUTRY Subdivision of the N&W, with two disparate areas of operation (its WV coal fields mainline and branches, and its Norfolk area terminal yards and trackage), and the N&W thereafter agreed to honor the C&O, PRR, and NYC trackage rights agreements in perpetuity.

 

Today, ten years after acquisition, thanks to the continued high quality, high yield Bothersome Bottom Bituminous operation and the equally high quality and productive coal mined at Ruined River and Old King Coal, the Duckunder sub is one of the most profitable on the Norfolk & Western and still retains its unique identity in railroad history.

Very nice.

Fabulous work!

Peter

"Several weeks ago I posted photos of this scene in progress.  Here it is complete."

 

Excellent completion..... Congratulations......

 

A simple Wow • On the mining story & photography..........
 

Very Nice does not say enough! Great Job!

Great work Will, especially with the fall foliage that is often not seen in many layouts.  When fall colors are used, it is often too much color IMO.  I think you have a good and very realistic balance of color that looks real and not artificial.

 

I think fall and winter scenes are the most challenging to recreate.  When done right, they certainly are amazing.

Thanks, Spence.


Will

William A. Allen III
919-349-6566 Mobile

Sent sporadically (not always reliably) via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum <alerts@hoop.la> </div><div>Date:08/27/2014 21:31 (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Will Allen III <will@allenheuer.com> </div><div>Subject: Reply By Spence: Duckunder pictures: Bothersome Bottom Bituminous &... </div><div>

Thank you, but I can only imagine and envision. George Lasley is able to realize my designs and ideas.


Will

William A. Allen III
919-349-6566 Mobile

Sent sporadically (not always reliably) via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum <alerts@hoop.la> </div><div>Date:08/27/2014 21:35 (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Will Allen III <will@allenheuer.com> </div><div>Subject: Reply By Putnam Division: Duckunder pictures: Bothersome Bottom Bituminous &... </div><div>

We are going to try a rainy fall scene complete with clouds and a gray, drab look on the last project next. Thanks for your encouragement about the autumn colors. We may yet tone down some of the brightest parts to make them even duller.


Will

William A. Allen III
919-349-6566 Mobile

Sent sporadically (not always reliably) via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum <alerts@hoop.la> </div><div>Date:08/27/2014 21:46 (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Will Allen III <will@allenheuer.com> </div><div>Subject: Reply By Keystone: Duckunder pictures: Bothersome Bottom Bituminous &... </div><div>

The back story is as much fun to imagine as the scene itself. We created the scene to match the supposed history, which made it all even more fun.  

Thanks for your kind comments.


Will

William A. Allen III
919-349-6566 Mobile

Sent sporadically (not always reliably) via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum <alerts@hoop.la> </div><div>Date:08/27/2014 21:35 (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Will Allen III <will@allenheuer.com> </div><div>Subject: Reply By trainroomgary: Duckunder pictures: Bothersome Bottom Bituminous &... </div><div>

Great Work    congrats   Will

Thanks, Stephen. It's going to be a lot of fun to operate! 


Will

William A. Allen III
919-349-6566 Mobile

Sent sporadically (not always reliably) via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum <alerts@hoop.la> </div><div>Date:08/27/2014 22:46 (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Will Allen III <will@allenheuer.com> </div><div>Subject: Reply By Stephen C. Puntar: Duckunder pictures: Bothersome Bottom Bituminous &... </div><div>

Awesome! That's something to be proud of!!

Will,

Fantastic - when will you start to produce some of those amazing videos you used to do?  When my son was small I used to have dozens of YouTube clips on DVD for him to fall asleep to and yours were included!

Fantastic story, and believable, if you read it in the newspaper condensed from court

documents.

Thank you!

The fancifal background enriches the experience of operations on the branch, which is very congested with competing railroads' hoppers jockeying for their loads.

Will

William A. Allen III
919-349-6566 Mobile

Sent sporadically (not always reliably) via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum <alerts@hoop.la> </div><div>Date:08/28/2014 15:45 (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Will Allen III <will@allenheuer.com> </div><div>Subject: Reply By colorado hirailer: Duckunder pictures: Bothersome Bottom Bituminous &... </div><div>

Will is great to work with.  We frequently think alike in planning and background.

 

A few bits on what was done.  The abandoned tipple covered in vines on the left is the original BBB.  It was mine run only with no sorting or grading of the coal. The yellow tipple is the YFS.  It originally loaded 3 sizes with three more added when BBB regained control. The red conveyor is for slack directly into a car. The outside tracks load 2 sizes each.  The non yellow parts are added by BBB.

 

I realized there was no room for a pole or power line along the branch so I dug in the scrapbox for parts to build the powerhouse.  It supplys DC directly to the tipple so no transformers are needed.  Its water comes from a tank higher up on the mountain and thus out of sight.

 

OSHA doesn't get this far back in the woods so the painter works with no safety equipment.

 

The trestle is the only water on the entire layout.  There just was no place for it before.

 

The fall colors are fun and different to do.  I use a mix of JTT and WS stuff.

 

Glad all of you like this scene.  The next one will be a challenge with the rainy wet look.

 

George

George has a great sense of humor and irony in addition to his spectacular modeling skills, which makes him fun to be around.

 

We added two mules and their drivers to the Duckunder Coal & Coke #2 scene today.  I posted the photos in a separate topic.

Will, Looks fantastic

 

 

Alex

Thanks to everyone!  The scene sure is fun to look at and operate trains on.

Geez how did I miss this!

 

Will this looks great.  I'm glad to see your RR back in business.

Thanks, Marty.  Been back in business for over 3 years now!  Still hoping you'll visit. You are always welcome.


Will

William A. Allen III
919-349-6566 Mobile

Sent sporadically (not always reliably) via the Samsung GALAXY S®4, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum <alerts@hoop.la> </div><div>Date:09/02/2014 10:17 (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Will Allen III <will@allenheuer.com> </div><div>Subject: Reply By MartyE: Duckunder pictures: Bothersome Bottom Bituminous &... </div><div>

When Lionel has their next open house I plan to.

Very nice!  the guy working on the billboard is a nice touch.

Many thanks, Lee. You are always welcome to visit should you find yourself coming to Raleigh! Just let me know in advance.



Will



William A. Allen III

919-349-6566 Mobile

Excellent!



Will



William A. Allen III

919-349-6566 Mobile