West Virginia Northern Railroad: Map, Photos, History

Last revised: September 24, 2026

The West Virginia Northern was eleven miles of Preston County coal railroad, Kingwood down to the Baltimore & Ohio at Tunnelton. Reporting mark WVN. Headquarters at Kingwood, with a Philadelphia office at 260 South Broad Street. It opened as a three-foot line on January 7, 1888, became standard gauge in December 1895, and spent a century handing loaded hoppers to the B&O. Common-carrier freight ended on February 19, 1991. A tourist company ran the same track from August 1994 until 1999. The grade is coming back as a rail-trail. Two of its Baldwin Consolidations, Nos. 8 and 9, are still in West Virginia.

The steam list below is the Baldwin record that can be documented: five Consolidations that worked the railroad, and a first No. 8 that the builder sent somewhere else. The diesel list is the whole diesel roster, three switchers bought new.

West Virginia Northern SW1200 52 and NW2s with coal loads at Howesville West Virginia June 22 1984

SW1200 #52 and the NW2s with loads at Howesville, June 22, 1984. Warren Calloway photo. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Three feet to Tunnelton · Sturgiss and Martin · Coal and the switchback · System map, about 1925 · Five Consolidations · Three switchers · 1991, and the tourist years · The trail, and Nos. 8 and 9

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	West Virginia Northern Railroad. Mark WVN
Headquarters	Kingwood, West Virginia. Philadelphia office, 260 South Broad Street
Genesis	Kingwood & Tunnelton Railway, 1884. Opened by a receiver January 7, 1888
Named	West Virginia Northern. Gauge change December 1895. Incorporated July 5, 1899, as successor to the Tunnelton, Kingwood & Fairchance
Freight	January 7, 1888–February 19, 1991
Tourist	Kingwood Northern, Inc., August 1994–1999
State	West Virginia. Preston County
Route-miles	11 (1930). Kingwood–Tunnelton
Gauge	3 ft, 1888–December 1895. Then 4 ft 8½ in
Connection	Baltimore & Ohio at Tunnelton. CSX at the end
Steam	Baldwin 2-8-0s. Nos. 8 and 9 sold to the Preston Railroad in 1950 and survive
Diesel	NW2s 50 and 51, 1946–47. SW1200 52, August 1960. All bought new
What remains	West Virginia Northern Rail-Trail, Kingwood and Tunnelton. The two Consolidations, with the state, at Cass and Belington

Three feet to Tunnelton

Kingwood wanted its coal on the Baltimore & Ohio, and the B&O main line was eleven miles south, at Tunnelton, under the east portal of the Kingwood Tunnel. Local promoters chartered the Kingwood & Tunnelton Railway in 1884. They finished the grading in 1885 and then ran out of money. A receiver completed the three-foot railroad, and the first trains ran on January 7, 1888.

On May 5, 1888, the property was sold to C. M. Bishop, William G. Brown, William M. O. Dawson, and George W. Whitesan. They organized the Tunnelton, Kingwood & Fairchance Railroad and talked of two extensions: north to Fairchance, Pennsylvania, and west toward Morgantown under a Morgantown & Kingwood they sketched in 1889. The money for those lines did not come. Dawson later served as governor of West Virginia, from 1905 to 1909. The eleven miles stayed eleven miles.

Sturgiss and Martin

In January 1895 George C. Sturgiss and J. Ami Martin bought the railroad for $30,000, renamed it the West Virginia Northern, and had it converted to standard gauge by December 1895. Steve Llanso, working from the Baldwin specifications, dates the incorporation of that company, as successor to the Tunnelton, Kingwood & Fairchance, to July 5, 1899.

Sturgiss and Martin also built the road the 1889 plan had only named. The Morgantown & Kingwood was chartered on January 10, 1899, and opened in three pieces: Morgantown to Bretz in September 1903, Bretz to Kingwood in March 1906, and Kingwood to the B&O at Rowlesburg, the place called M&K Junction, in July 1907. It was 47.9 miles along Deckers Creek, with shops at Sabraton. Stephen B. Elkins bought it in 1902 while it was still being built. The Baltimore & Ohio took it in 1920 and ran it as the M&K Branch, an inside route from the main line to the Fairmont, Morgantown & Pittsburgh at Morgantown. The West Virginia Northern and the M&K both reached Kingwood. They kept separate yards. The Northern’s outlet stayed the B&O at Tunnelton. That junction, and the helper station the B&O built there, is M&K Junction.

Coal and the switchback

Once the gauge matched the B&O, the mines came to the track. More than a dozen tipples stood on the eleven miles, and the railroad also worked seven spurs: Miller No. 1, Miller No. 3, B&C No. 5, Mary Lee No. 1, Ream No. 1, Brooke No. 10, and Bellfield. By the Second World War a busy day could fill fifty hoppers, and the road was capable of far more when the tipples were all loading. Crews left the loads in a small staging yard at Tunnelton, beside the B&O main and across from the Tunnelton depot, and brought the empties home.

The profile is a roller coaster. Out of Kingwood the line climbed to a summit near Howesville on a switchback, and that switchback lasted as long as the railroad did. Trains were short. In the diesel years all three switchers were often on the head end of one coal train. The named stops, south from Kingwood, were Kingwood Junction, Snider, Irona, Mattingly, Howesville, Mountain View, Jessop, Towson, Marion, and Tunnelton.

West Virginia Northern Railroad map about 1925 from Kingwood to Tunnelton

The West Virginia Northern, about 1925. Author’s work. Eleven miles, Kingwood to the Baltimore & Ohio at Tunnelton.

Official West Virginia Northern Railroad timetable

An official West Virginia Northern timetable. Author’s collection.

Five Consolidations

Steam on the West Virginia Northern, in the record Baldwin left, was a handful of 2-8-0s. The wheel arrangement is the ordinary one for a coal railroad of that size. What follows is this railroad’s engines.

Baldwin built a first No. 8 for the road and delivered it instead to the New York, Susquehanna & Western as that company’s 111. The West Virginia Northern’s own No. 8 is the next engine, Baldwin 24738, outshopped in September 1904. No. 9, Baldwin 28500, followed in June 1906. No. 10, Baldwin 32313, followed in November 1907. Steve Llanso’s class 10, from the Baldwin specification cards and a later National Railways of Mexico diagram, gives the 1904 design 46-inch drivers, 21-by-24-inch cylinders, 160 pounds of boiler pressure, 125,000 pounds on the drivers, 140,000 pounds for the engine, and 31,292 pounds of tractive effort. Walschaerts valve gear. A short stroke and a low driver, which is what an eleven-mile hill railroad wants.

No. 10 did not stay. In 1911 the railroad sold her to the Cambria & Indiana as No. 3. In October 1916 she became No. 1 of the Minatitlán al Carmen, then briefly Nacional de México 2080A, then Petróleos Mexicanos 1051. Pemex retired her in 1957.

Two heavier Consolidations came after the First World War. No. 11, Baldwin 45352, March 1917, and No. 12, Baldwin 52381, September 1919, weighed 152,000 pounds, with 135,000 of that on the drivers. Llanso notes a higher boiler pressure than the 1904 design and the same valve gear. No. 11 went in 1947 to the Boyne City, Gaylord & Alpena, in Michigan, as that road’s third No. 11, and was scrapped in 1951. No. 12 went to the Alexander & Southeastern, the F. C. Coke operation. The published note on her ends there.

Nos. 8 and 9 worked Kingwood into the diesel years, more than forty-five years, and were sold in 1950 to the Preston Railroad of Crellin, Maryland, as Nos. 18 and 19. In 1961 Earl Leap of Madley, Pennsylvania, bought both. In 1970 they passed to Don Leap and went into storage at Hyndman, Pennsylvania, under a shed, with a pair of small Orenstein & Koppel engines. They sat there for more than thirty years.

No.	Type	Builder	Serial	Built	Notes
8	2-8-0	Baldwin	24738	September 1904	Second No. 8. A first No. 8 was delivered to the New York, Susquehanna & Western as 111. Sold 1950 to the Preston Railroad as 18. Preserved. See below
9	2-8-0	Baldwin	28500	June 1906	Sold 1950 to the Preston Railroad as 19. Preserved. See below
10	2-8-0	Baldwin	32313	November 1907	To Cambria & Indiana 3, 1911. Minatitlán al Carmen 1, October 1916. NdeM 2080A. Pemex 1051. Retired 1957
11	2-8-0	Baldwin	45352	March 1917	Heavier design, 152,000 lb. To Boyne City, Gaylord & Alpena as third 11, 1947. Scrapped 1951
12	2-8-0	Baldwin	52381	September 1919	Same design as 11. To the Alexander & Southeastern

Baldwin works numbers and the sale chain are Steve Llanso’s, from the DeGolyer Library specification cards and a 1950 National Railways of Mexico diagram. Class 10 dimensions in the paragraph above are his reading of those cards. A class heading of his counts three engines in the 1917 design and prints road numbers 11–12. Only two works numbers are on the page, so this table stops at 12.

Three switchers

The NW2s arrived before the last steam left. Nos. 50 and 51 were bought new, 1,000-horsepower Electro-Motive switchers on order E773. No. 50 is serial 4229, August 1946. No. 51 is serial 4230, June 1947. No. 11 had already gone to Michigan. Nos. 8 and 9 followed them off the property in 1950, to Crellin. From then until 1960 the two NW2s were the railroad.

No. 52, an SW1200 with dynamic brakes, was also bought new: serial 26033, order 4440, August 1960. Twelve hundred horsepower, and the dynamics mattered on the grade out of Kingwood. The three engines were the diesel roster. Nothing else was added. On June 22, 1984, Warren Calloway found all three together at Howesville, 52 and the two NW2s, with loads headed for Tunnelton.

Model	No.	Builder	Serial	Order	Built	Notes
NW2	50	EMD	4229	E773	August 1946	Bought new. One of the two engines that left Tunnelton under their own power in 2002. Stored near Pittsburgh, then Eighty Four, Pennsylvania, in 2005
NW2	51	EMD	4230	E773	June 1947	Bought new. Later owner not in the sources used here
SW1200	52	EMD	26033	4440	August 1960	Bought new. Dynamic brakes. Left with No. 50 in 2002. Same storage moves

NW2 serials and order E773 are the Electro-Motive production list, the same figures on the NW2 page. The SW1200 serial and order 4440 are the SW1200 production list.

West Virginia Northern SW1200 52 and NW2s 50 and 51 with coal near Howesville June 22 1984

SW1200 #52 and NW2s #50 and #51 with loads near Howesville, bound for Tunnelton, June 22, 1984. Warren Calloway photo. American-Rails.com collection. All three were bought new.

West Virginia Northern SW1200 52 with dynamic brakes at Tunnelton West Virginia June 1984

SW1200 #52 at Tunnelton, June 1984, the dynamic-brake blister on the hood. Warren Calloway photo. American-Rails.com collection. Electro-Motive built her in August 1960, serial 26033.

1991, and the tourist years

Coal held the railroad up, and coal let it down. Through the 1980s the Preston County mines closed or stopped shipping by rail. Crews who had spent the week somewhere along the roller coaster, switching a tipple, ran out of tipples. Freight ended on February 19, 1991.

In August 1994 Kingwood Northern, Inc., a group that wanted the railroad kept, reopened it as an excursion line with Nos. 50 and 52 and a small fleet of passenger cars. Ridership grew. The debt grew faster. More than a million dollars of it, part of that from a fight with the city of Kingwood, closed the tourist railroad in 1999. The advertised first railfan weekend was announced as the last. Equipment sat at Kingwood until 2002, when 50 and 52 ran the line one last time under their own power, Kingwood shops to the CSX interchange at Tunnelton, and went into storage near Pittsburgh. In 2005 they were moved to Eighty Four, Pennsylvania. Rail came off the grade by 2005. The Kingwood shop site was left as an empty yard.

The trail, and Nos. 8 and 9

The West Virginia Railroad Museum bought Nos. 8 and 9 from the Hyndman storage in 2005, with the idea of repairing one of them to run on the West Virginia Central out of Elkins. On May 26, 2016, the museum’s board assigned both engines to the West Virginia State Rail Authority. Restoring No. 9 had been priced above $350,000, which the museum did not have, and the transfer was the way to keep the pair. They were to go to Cass and be restored to run. As of early 2026, No. 9 was at the Cass Scenic Railroad awaiting that work, and No. 8 was still in pieces at Belington.

The right-of-way went to the Kern Valley Railroad for the scrap, and Preston County Parks and Recreation, with Friends of the Cheat, later took the corridor for a trail. About two miles opened at Kingwood in 2020, from the civic center on Tunnelton Street into the woods. A disconnected piece at Tunnelton, about a mile, with a linear park, opened on June 29, 2024. The plan is still the whole eleven miles, Kingwood to Tunnelton. Most of the old Kingwood Junction buildings came down in the late 2010s. A water tower is planned as the trailhead gate. The hoppers are gone. The two Consolidations of 1904 and 1906 are the engines that remain.

Sources

Llanso, Steve. “West Virginia Northern, Class 10” and “Class 11.” SteamLocomotive.com, Locobase 11959 and 14350. Baldwin specification cards, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Vol. 27, p. 31 and p. 98, and Vols. 53 and 59. Works numbers 24738, 28500, 32313, 45352, and 52381. First No. 8 to the New York, Susquehanna & Western as 111. No. 10 to the Cambria & Indiana, Minatitlán, NdeM, and Pemex. Nos. 8 and 9 to the Preston Railroad in 1950 as 18 and 19. No. 11 to the Boyne City, Gaylord & Alpena in 1947. No. 12 to the Alexander & Southeastern. Class 10 dimensions and tractive effort. Incorporation July 5, 1899. NdeM 1950 diagram via Allen Stanley, December 2010
SteamLocomotive.com survivor list, West Virginia. Preston 18 (Baldwin 24738, 1904) and 19 (Baldwin 28500, 1906), ex-West Virginia Northern, from Don Leap, stored at Cass. A February 2026 Casshews note, quoted on Railway Preservation News in March 2026, places No. 9 at Cass awaiting restoration and No. 8 in pieces at Belington
West Virginia Railroad Museum board, May 26, 2016, as reported on Railway Preservation News. Assignment of Nos. 8 and 9 to the West Virginia State Rail Authority. Restoration of No. 9 priced above $350,000. Museum purchase in 2005
American-Rails.com, EMD NW2 production roster (/d139.html), and the Electro-Motive order list archived at trainweb.us. West Virginia Northern 50–51, serials 4229–4230, order E773, August 1946 and June 1947. SW1200 order list, same archive: No. 52, serial 26033, order 4440, August 1960
Wikipedia, “West Virginia Northern Railroad,” and “Morgantown and Kingwood Railroad.” Freight through February 19, 1991. Tourist operation August 1994–1999. Locomotives 50 and 52 moved in 2002 and again in 2005 to Eighty Four, Pennsylvania. Track removed by 2005. M&K charter January 10, 1899, opening dates through July 1907, B&O successor 1920, 47.9 miles
West Virginia Rails to Trails and WBOY, June 29, 2024. Kingwood section opened 2020, about two miles. Tunnelton Linear Park segment opened June 29, 2024. The Kingwood–Tunnelton trail is still being connected
Appalachian Railroad Modeling, “WVN — West Virginia Northern.” Switchback from Kingwood to the summit near Howesville. Howesville–Squires Creek spur of the 1950s, later removed. Short trains and three-unit diesel consists
The live American-Rails page for the 1884 charter, the January 7, 1888, opening, the May 5, 1888, sale, the January 1895 purchase at $30,000, the December 1895 gauge change, the mine spurs, the station list, the Philadelphia office, and the Kingwood Northern debt. Warren Calloway’s June 1984 photographs, used above

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