Chesapeake & Ohio RR station - Hinton, West Virginia - Train Stations/Depots on Waymarking.com

From "The Great American Stations" website: "The Hinton station was built for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O) in 1905 as a division terminal. The station and tracks lie along a bend in the New River; in a quirk of engineering, the eastbound trains pass southwest through the station and westbound trains pass northeast. The otherwise two-story depot has a middle section that stands at three stories and is built entirely from red brick with a rock-faced stone belt course that runs at the window heads. The porch coverings are supported by heavy wooden brackets that feature a wood-fan pattern trim. Currently, the station is largely unoccupied except for an Amtrak waiting room opened and closed by a caretaker. Along the hillside bordering the platform, a neighbor maintains a lush garden for the enjoyment of rail passengers.

The depot, which is located in the Hinton National Register Historic District, suffered a great deal of smoke damage when a fire tore through it in December, 2007. However, the building reopened only a short time later, having been stabilized and repaired. Currently, the station is undergoing a $1.5 million series of phased repairs and renovations funded through a federal Transportation Enhancement grant with matches from the city. Work in the early phases included installation of a new slate roof, re-pointing of the brickwork and repairs to the windows and decorative woodwork. A new concrete platform with tactile edging was also installed. The last part of the project is focused on rehabilitating the interior space for commercial use to possibly include a restaurant.

The town of Hinton was originally laid out on the land of Avis Gwinn Hinton and her husband, John “Jack” Hinton, a prominent lawyer, in 1831. The small town saw only slight growth for the next 40 years. By the early 1870s, the C&O completed its route through New River Gorge and eventually settled on Hinton as a division terminal, jumpstarting the town’s growth. Hinton was officially established in 1872, but was not chartered until 1880.

By 1905, when the station was built, Hinton was a booming railroad town. The rail traffic was primarily coal. It was an assembly point for shorter coal trains from area mines to be combined into longer trains that would be sent east to the port of Hampton Roads, Va. In 1871, Summers County, named after famed West Virginia politician and judge George W. Summers, was created from parts of the surrounding counties. Hinton was named the county seat when the C&O Railroad donated the land for the county court house.

As the division terminal for the C&O, Hinton’s population grew to more than 6,000, and featured multiple newspapers, a state of the art hospital, a luxury hotel, and a C&O operations facility that employed hundreds. This period of growth and prosperity was somewhat short lived; with the advent of diesel engines in the 1950s, the maintenance needs were much lower, and the repair facilities required fewer workers. Most of the railroad towns on the C&O went into decline after the C&O/Seaboard merger of 1980 that created CSX. Many yards and terminals were closed and removed, including Hinton. Only the large concrete coal dock and some rusting water tanks mark the location of the former steam locomotive engine terminal, west of the station.

Today, the town features a large historical district full of architectural wonders that hearken back to its past as a major rail hub in the late 19th century. The city views itself as a “living museum” of that time period and celebrates its annual Rail Road Days at the end of October. The festival features food, live music and the work of local artisans—including everything from quilts to birdhouses. The Hinton Rail Road Days are timed to coincide with the popular New River excursion trains that have run for many years from Huntington to Hinton to view the foliage in the New River Gorge."

Is the station/depot currently used for railroad purposes?: Yes Is the station/depot open to the public?: Yes What rail lines does/did the station/depot serve?: C&O, now CSX, Amtrak If the station/depot is not being used for railroad purposes, what is it currently used for?: Not listed Station/Depot Web Site: Not listed

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