I grew up in the Smithfield, Cadiz, Cambridge, OHIO area in the 1950’s and have some interest in writing about the railroads serving the coal mining territory in a triangle bordered by Wheeling, WV, Steubenville, OH, and Cambridge, OH. The coal mining is mostly played out now and some of the rail lines serving the area have been abandoned (B & O between Wheeling WV and Cambridge,OH) but in the 1950’s; the area had two of the largest shovels in the world (The Mountaineer and the Gem of Egypt) operating in the area. Does anyone have any knowledge of published material already available about this subject? I’m retired and live in Wisconsin now but really do love seeing those Ohio hills when visiting the area and think this is a subject worth writing about.
See if you can find copies of the Keystone Coal Manual for the yrs that interest you. This annual publication has coal seam descriptions, lists of mines (including rail shipment points and lines handling shipments) along with a wealth of other data. The book’s contents are arranged by state so material is pretty easy to find. What’s interesting about the mine listings in these old books is that they give tonnage produced, equipment in use at the mine, no. of employees, etc.
Also, see if you can find back issues of Coal Age and Coal Mining and Processing. These magazines will give you a good take on the industry and what was happening. You can probably obtain most of this through interlibrary loan or, if you live near a university that has an engineering program, you can visit their library.
Almost forgot, there are several books out there about shovels and mining equipment. Amazon can help you with that. Also, don’t forget to check out various equipment manufacturer’s websites; many of the old com panies were absorbed by other ones, but the present websites many times have historical material with pictures, specifications, etc.