Hey everyone. Me and my friends this past summer went down to WV to ride on the hattfield mccoy trails (Browning Fork System) in Gilbert WV. It was the best atv riding that I have ever done, awesome trails. When riding we cam across this Clark wheel dozer a 250B I think it says on it. This machine seemed to just be abandon up their. We also cam across some abandon mines with the conveyors and everything still in the mine. Anyways I was just wondering if anyone could tell me about the coal mining their, History, why they left abandon equipment up their? Some nice country though!
I have always wanted to go ride those trails, ill make it someday
been there a few times in gilbert myself...its the best place in the world to ride...i cant wait to go back...sorry i dont have any answers on the coal mining for you!
Yea the best riding Ive ever done. Nice clean trails that just go for miles. I like how the state promotes it, its a way to get revenue! Unlike where I'm from MA, has one forest which is like 15 miles of trails and its on the other side of the state from me. Thats the only place you can legally ride Atv in MA, and your own property. It sucks riding here cops always after you, people complaining, in WV they embrace it as a money maker for the state which they should do in MA to but will never happen, too many people worried we might disturb some animals or something. But If anyone has info. on the coal mining down there post it cause I'm interested.
OK. Been there, done that. Coal mining has a long and mixed history. It's made fortunes for some, and paupers out of millionaires. The stories of the coal fields of America could be told forever and never the same one twice. It so happens that I helped mine coal at a surface mine not far from Gilbert. There are thousands of mines in the state and many are and were small outfits that never had a lot of equipment. As coal has busted and boomed, a lot of the small guys got caught out when prices went into the toilet and they lost everything. So they have a spread of equipment mortgaged to the hilt when the bust hits, they have to sell off to try to keep from losing the house and boat, maybe the wife too. But some of the equipment is on the books for way too much money, like that 280 there. It was probably listed in excellent condition at $100,000, when even at a good auction it wouldn't draw $10,000. It may have a bad or worn engine or transmission, simply making to too expensive to get rid of or haul off the mountain. The coal operator is long gone. His neighbors have stripped everything useful off and there it sits. It may still belong to some bank or finance company too. Some iron is just abandoned as the mine operator has scooted for parts unknown with #1girlfriend and what's left of the cash while the gettin was still good. I've met some that did this and there are a lot of them. Don't own a thing, owe millions to creditors, and live with some gal in HER house driving HER pickup. She owns everything you see. Sometimes this backfires and the operator gets kicked out and can't say squat because of his situation. Family partnerships are big losers to as they all get to squabbling about who ownes what after a shutdown. Some cases are tied up in the courts forever, and the iron just sits. Now if it's a bigger operation, of perhaps foreign owned, there may be a guard on the property and all the roads in blocked off in one fashion or another. The guards get paid to sit by the equipment 24/7, and may do so for years. I knew of one example of two longwalls that had sat for over five years. They was owned by some Dutch outfit. Of course, the guards had taken the batteries, and the fuel, and any tools that were left. They might also be bribed to look the other way, or help sometimes, as thieves make off with bigger parts. Probably their brother in law or uncle. The bigger operations are a little more savvy financially these days, but some still get caught out by plummeting prices, and you can't dig coal long when your costs are higher than what you make and long time customers are crying "Force Majeure" and canceling their contracts. These guys may have a zillion bucks in iron underground and in facilities and tracks, etc, none of it worth a damn when coal burps. I know of at least two large non-working underground mines in eastern Kentucky where everything is almost exactly as though the miners left the day before for the weekend. All the tracks, wiring, mine cars, everything is exactly where they left it. The one mine was buried since shortly after WWII. The other was taken over by another outfit, who built a corporate headquarters building directly in front of the main entrance, and a tipple complete with wash plant right next door. The mine opening, about six feet away, could be peered into from inside the vice-presidents exterior window, and there was a dinky with several cars just inside, with many more behind them. Our safety director toured both mines and said there wasn't much coal left in either one of them, but that even lamps, helmets, tools, lighting, conveyors were still all there. Of course, everything was rusted to the hilt. The buried mine was flooded, untill we drilled into the main shaft with a side hill bore. Then it un-flooded fast, nearly drowned our operator. It ran two 36" streams of water 24/7 for three days or so, then ran out of water and dried up overnight. In Pennsylvania, I knew of a mine that shut down much later, not a year before we moved into the area. At one time it had been the largest underground operation in western PA. It got shut down with no warning and everything was left right where it was at. The main shaft and operations buildings, tipple, a seven mile private conveyor, and a loadout facility on the Monongahela River were all just shut off and left as though the miners would come back the next day. Of course, after a year or so, the lower levels of this mine were flooded and anything left down there was ruined. It would take a large fortune to dewater in order to start again and it would be very unstable, very dangerous. You don't really dare to even open up a new shaft close to an old bore that's been flooded as if something breaks, you lose men and machines in the new shafts. I could write on this subject forever. But between the bugs, snakes, and United Mine Workers, I don't miss that region of the country. I have a ton of relatives that live there and work in the mines every day and they wouldn't leave for all the tea in China. But it's a hard and dangerous life.
Thanks Surfer-Joe for all the information I appreciate it. Where I'm from you don't know anything about mining and I was just intrigued after this trip I took. I love heavy equipment and I like history so I just figured I would ask on the History of this old wheel Dozer and these mines. When I went there it seemed like all the town was about was coal back in the day but now that is slowing down a lot of people seemed to be creating business's tailored to your everyday ATV tourist. It seemed like they were trying to revitalize the area now that all these ATV riders are coming. We stayed in Gilbert WV but would ride to Mann WV, while in Mann we saw a Hospital all borded up and closed. I don't know but with all the environmental things going on nowadays I assume the production of coal has went down which was not good for this town and towns like it.
when we went to gilbert we stayed out by that walmart shopping center that was cut out of the mountain...amazing! and the fact that you could ride right down out of the mountain trail heads and onto the roads into town was almost too much! i felt like i was doing some outrageously illegal thing and found myself always looking over my shoulder for cops and cars like i do around here!!
Yea me too. It was awesome but always had the feeling I was going to get in trouble. We stayed at the Mountain Breeze Motel, nice clean place for cheap. We parked are truck and trailer when we got there and didn't touch them again until we left we just rode the quads everywhere.