Eastern Railroad Discussion > Time marches on at Maple Creek

Once upon a time, countless mine portals dotted the landscape of the Monongahela River valley, spewing the lifeblood of black diamonds that fed the nearby steel industry via loadouts on both rail and the river. Many of these mines have either gradually played out or fallen victim to various economic and regulatory factors over the years. One mine that was always very visible to me was US Steel's Maple Creek Mine in New Eagle PA, which my family would pass on every trip to visit my grandparents, who still lived in the valley. Although it had a rail loadout, most of the tonnage seemed to go out by barge (I'm assuming to the nearby Clairton works). In 1995, Murray Energy bought the mine, which was eventually closed in 2004. In 2009, demolition started on the large prep plant that sat between state route 88 and the NS mainline. Now, very little of the prep plant remains besides the large conveyor tube and rail tipple that spans the NS Mon Line. I paused there recently to record this little slice of history before it too someday disappears...here's NS mine run N10 blasting beneath the remains of Maple Creek, southbound with another train of empty hoppers for one of the big remaining mines on the MGA.

Thanks for looking!

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N10 will load at Loveridge. Along with N11, N12 and N14. But I haven't heard N12 and N14 for quite some time now.

Chris Tokarcik
Morgantown, WV

For what it's worth yesterdays N01 had the EMDX 2010 trailing behind the 2012 but an issue was reported at Federal Mine and it never made it out of the yard. As of 23:00 hours it was still sitting on 1 coal ready to head south


ernie

Mike, nice description of the photo. I need to get down there and get a shot for my records too.
John