A new look at mines, towns, trains, people that were involved in transportation of coal from mine to market on C&O in the period 1945-1960. Chapters include Background; Coal Fields Motive Power; Coal Fields Rolling Stock; C&O Coal Operations; Coal Towns; Mines & Tipples. Most photos are from C&O official files and illustrate every aspect of coal mining and transportation. Maps show branches and their relationship to whole scheme. Ideal for C&O fans, modelers, and those interested in the coal fields of Appalachia. If you have the C&OHS’s 1995 book C&O in the Coal Fields, this book is ALL NEW, and does not repeat the photos or data.

The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway entered the 20th Century as a small but growing line in the region of Virginia-West Virginia-Kentucky. By the middle of the century it was the world's largest carrier of bituminous coal, a major play in passenger service (though its own fleet was small), and was important in automotive industry transportation. Its stock was blue chip, its cash reserves seemingly limitless, its public relations and advertising the best in the country. It had a reputation as one of the best managed and most profitable lines in the nation.

This book is the first complete detailed history of the Chesapeake & Ohio's Coal Rver District. These branch lines tapped a fabulously rich coal field just to the south of the C&O main line in sourthern West Virginia, and remains to this day an important coal producing area. Dr. Wendell McChord has researched the line and presents one of the most comprhensive histories in text, maps, and photos covering this very important part of the C&O's coal era.