Brimstone Railroad
The Brimstone Railroad was a 12-mile railroad that connected New River with Cortland (Lone Mountain) near the head of Brimstone. It was originally owned by the New River Lumber Company and was used to haul coal and lumber out of the mountains around Brimstone. It partially followed the route of the Knoxville & New River Railroad that had been built earlier. It was the last railroad to be built in Scott County.
Beginnings
The Brimstone Railroad was chartered in 1942 by W.M. Ritter Lumber, which purchased the New River Lumber Company from the bankrupt Thomas Hall Lumber Company in 1928.
W.M. Ritter stood for William McClellan Ritter (1864-1952), an American lumberman who was a member of the War Industries Board during World War I. He began his logging career in West Virginia in 1890, and later expanded into Virginia and Kentucky, then Tennessee and the Carolinas. The W.M. Ritter Lumber Company was established in Welch, W.V. in 1894 and was incorporated in 1901.
In addition to the lumber mill and the railroad, the Ritter company established the Red Jacket Coal Corp., which operated small coal mines along Brimstone Creek. At one point, Red Jacket had plans to build 40 company houses in Scott County, but that plan was never realized.
The railroad interchanged with the Southern Railroad at New River, and followed Brimstone Creek to Cortland, which was located at Lone Mountain. From Slick Rock to Cortland, the Brimstone Railroad followed the railbed that had been graded in the 1880s by the Knoxville & New River Railroad.
Life on the railroad
The 12-mile Brimstone Railroad operated with three shay steam locomotives over the years. Even when other railroads had moved to diesel engines, the trains on the Brimstone Railroad continued to be pulled by steam engines.
There was a railroad spur located at Huntsville Branch to serve the coal mining operation there (the community was known as Hughett), and a side rail at a tipple close to Lone Mountain.
Changing hands
In October 1960, W.M. Ritter merged with Georgia-Pacific. The Georgia-Pacific closed the New River mill in 1961, but continued to operate the Brimstone Railroad.
In July 1963, the Southern Railroad opened the new bridge over New River, which was one of the tallest railroad bridges in all of North America. The new bridge allowed the railroad to bypass Tunnel 15 at Robbins. As a result, the portion of the Southern line from Helenwood to New River was abandoned. However, Southern Railroad left the line intact for the Brimstone Railroad.
In 1966, the Interstate Commerce Commission declared that the Brimstone shay locomotives were unsafe for operation due to “dead flanges.” Because no new parts were available, the railroad was sold to the Southern Railroad and was reorganized as the New River Railroad. The Southern Railroad operated the railroad for several more years before trains stopped traveling the tracks once and for all.
The last mine at Brimstone closed in 1980.
The railroad’s last days
In 2015, the Brimstone Railroad was sold to Scott County businessmen David Brewster and Dwayne King. They removed the steel rails, wooden ties and rocks for salvage, and the property was allowed to revert to neighboring landowners. The railroad line was briefly explored for a rails-to-trails program, but that plan was quickly abandoned.