Customer Reviews

West Virginia Narrow Gauge Mann's Creek Railway

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This is an extraordinarily thorough exploration of the life and times of a little narrow gauge railroad that hauled both coal and lumber during its long history. The authors take us on a delightful trip over the entire railroad, with text and map references that are well coordinated. The book includes a profusion of scale plans: two enginehouses, the Clifftop company store, the line's funky caboose, coal hoppers, a trestle, a truck-to-rail coal tipple, and other structures. Particularly useful to modelers are the photos, which include unusual pictures like much of the inside of a coal hopper. Though corporate histories can be dull, the historical portion of the book is captivating. We share the consternation of early entrepreneurs who unexpectedly ran out of coal reserves at the New River Gorge just as demand was skyrocketing: Fortunately for them and for us, the answer was coal just a few miles away and in between the Mann's Creek Railway. The authors invested thousands of hours creating this well written and profusely illustrated account. It sets a very high standard for railroad publishing. Buy this one!