We were up in Dickenson County on Sunday tracking down two tunnels I’d missed in our last sweep and we happened to turn onto Stratton Creek Road and found these two locomotives, CSX 105 and 439, unlocked and unguarded. Both were heavily damaged. I clambered up into 105 (all the usual steps were stripped away) and carefully walked to the engineer’s control room and took a couple of pictures (and nothing else). The second seat’s windshield was blown inward, but that could have been done by vandals. I did a little research later and found that 105 had been the lead engine in a derailment, but where I don’t know. I couldn’t find anything about 439.
This is the front of 439.
This is the engineer’s control area…not badly damaged at all.
This is the front of 439.
This is the engineer’s control area…not badly damaged at all.
But whatever happened to these two engines must have been scary to be in.
Blogging the Railroad Tunnels 
Your wrecked engines at Stratton possibly were from the train derailment at Clinchco near the Sykes Mill Tunnel in the 1970s. There was a lot of coal cleanup needed from the car derailments and a considerable amount of track repair was needed.
Thank you! I’d always wondered about that.