Quinnimont Coal Drag

Requires Trainz Route: C&O Hinton Subdivision This package includes the "C&O 2-6-6-6 H8" locomotive. Quinnimont was a marshalling yard for coal loads from the surrounding mines. Trains were assembled here to be shipped to Clifton Forge and beyond. Empty cars were also made-up here for the mines in the area. The first European settler on the wide river bottom at Quinnimont, below the mouth of Laurel Fork, was Jacob Smith, who arrived in 1827 and whose family was joined by others a few years later. Smith married three times and begot 24 children. The name "Quinnimont" is derived from the Latin roots for "five mountains," said to describe the five heights formed by the surrounding walls of the New River Gorge. Quinnimont was one of two towns in the New River Gorge that became major shipping points. The other, at Thurmond, began to develop in the 1890s, while operations at Quinnimont commenced 20 years sooner. Even before the railroad through the gorge had been fully completed to H