Hampshire/C29.5

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1922 and 2012 topo maps 78 car capacity sidetrack was at Hampshire and was once a coal tipple and coal processing facility. CSX trains no longer travel these rails as the WM constructed a new line to bypass the river valley due to a dam that was constructed west of here. The water now covers the valley thru which the WM ran. Shaw, Neffs, and Chaffee are now all under water. View Larger Map

View from a train looking east at Hampshire and the Mastellers Tipple.

View of Mastellers from across the river. This loader was in operation for over 100 years before it was closed down. Notice the truck on the hillside above the tipple. (1969, Don Biggs photo)

Looking west at Hampshire and at the Masteller's coal tipple. The main track is the the right of the tipple. This main track would become a stub spur that would go as far as Barnum to another coal loader. The mainline was reloacted around what is now Randolph Jennings Lake. (1970, Don Biggs photo)

Looking across the river with a telephoto lens in 1980 shows the Alco "zombie" diesel that was used to shuttle cars through the tipple to be loaded. This Alco was used in the last years at the tipple and would later be cut up for scrap on site. The air compressor and fuel tank still survive and may find there way in at WM FA2 someday. (1980, Don Biggs photo)

Some time after the photos that Don Biggs took, the tipple was updated. This is the updated tipple, what is left of it. It is being dismantled and cut up for scrap. These photos are looking east and west from inside the tipple. It was very cut up inside, I assume to removed equipment for another site.

View from up on the hillsite at the Masteller's Tipple site. There were two other buildings on the site when this photo was taken. I'm told one of them was an original WM building. I have a photo of it but there are a lot of trees around that building.

This WM bridge is just at the west side of the Masteller's Tipple site. The abutments are stone, not reinforced concrete. This route was the original West Virginia Central and later WM. Again the WM mainline was rerouted due to the dam and this would become just a spur to Barnum. West of Barnum the dam was built covering several small towns, Shaw being the most famous.

The new bridge and rail line between Beryl and Hampshire in 1977. The new line was built to go up the valley and around the Bloomington Dam. (Don Biggs photos)

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