Kenova's Rail Heritage

I had the opportunity to visit Kenova on Easter Sunday and looked at some of its railroad heritage. I spent a fair amount of time in Kenova as a child because my grandmother and many relatives lived there. My father also worked there for a wholesale grocer and I have many fond memories. Some of them center on Dreamland Pool in the western tip of Kenova and provided some great childhood memories of splashing in the pool and at one time, going down the slide into the cool water!

Sitting outside Dreamland today is the locomotive pictured below. This locomotive has been an inigma to me. It has haunted me since I took these pictures. I have spent hours searching the internet for more information on the locomotive as there is no signage accompanying it to give its origin or history.

What I have found is that it was manufacutured by H. K. Porter. H. K. Porter manufacutured locomotive engines of this design until 1950. While there is little information that I have been able to uncover about this particular locomotive, I have learned much about non-gear driven locomotives in the process. For instance, locomotives are know by the number of trucks they have. The H. K. Porter locomotive here would be a 0-4-0 as it has no forward truck, four drivers on its center truck and no rear truck. Larger, more powerful locomotives could have five or six trucks under them. This particular locomotive would be used primarily on a short line railroad or around a small operation. 

It has a sister, also built by H. K. Porter, at the B & O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland that served St. Elizabeth Hospital. 

I also visited Virginia Point Park in Kenova to view the Norfolk Southern Bridge. While this isn't the originial bridge, it appears to be in the same location.

This shot shows the bridge from approximately a mile away. You can see it in the distance, beyond the barges.

Here is a view from the flood wall, looking into Ohio.