Hedgesville, WV: B&O Cumbo Yard and West Cumbo (W) Tower

Yard: (Satellite, the brown land north of the tracks where trees can't grow.)

Tower: (Satellite, somewhere around where the Cumbo Yard lead to the southeast meets the north/south mainline)

Marty Bernard Flickr
CSX GP40-2 6207 (ex-B&O 4308) passing West Cumbo Tower in Hedgesville, WV on March 18, 1995.
Marty also contributed to rrpicturearchives with the description:
"Gregg Pullano sent this information. 'That's West Cumbo Tower, also known as "W" Tower under B&O Rules. The tower was closed on November 21, 2000 and was demolished on December 27 of the same year.'"

Google Index

Cumbo Yard was a B&O yard that held coal trains for interchange with Pennsy. Note that the east end of the yard connected with Pennsy tracks that connected to their mainline at Berkley Junction. 

1955 Hedgesville Quad @ 24,000

The Pennsy part is now abandoned but the B&O part is now an industrial spur. But the Pennsy overpass for the 6-lane I-81 still exists.

Satellite

Darren Reynolds posted five photos with the comment: "B&Os "W"Tower ( West cumbo)   Hedgesville,WV."

William Daugherty: Bob McFarland used to shoot frogs there,if you know what that is??

Bob McFarland: William Daugherty I’m sorry my post was taken down because the group found it offensive maybe I can enlighten them when I referred to hearing them shooting them I was referring to a term that WE Railroader know as shooting Frogs which means blasting a switch frog with explosives to harden the steel I hope this will clear up the misunderstanding of This group as to my comment!!!

[Fortunately, I had already read "Shooting Frogs at Cumbo" so I knew they were not killing amphibians.]

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This Tower was raised a couple weeks after it closed ...

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Looking West..

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Brand new SD-50 coming off the low grade which is between Miller Tower and West combo Tower . And still in use today.. this view is looking West.

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Looking East.. you can see the top of the roof in the center of the picture..
John Ciancio: What is the track on the left?
Darren Reynolds: John Ciancio I'm not sure what they call it but it goes behind the tower to another yard and eventually meets up with the Pennsylvania railroad at Berkeley junction.

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Days before closing note :the crossover is gone. They moved the interlocking West a little bit closer to the connection
Michael Zimmerman: Spent evenings at this tower. James l Edwards. Was a switch operator there. Was cool watching him pull switches for trains. Even let me pull them.

Darren Reynolds posted six photos. If you figure out which one is the new one, please leave a comment.

Bob Weston posted two photos with the comment: "B&O W Tower was located at West Cumbo, West Virginia on B&O's Cumberland Division. Access to the upper level was via an internal cast iron spiral stair case. R J Weston photo taken in July of 2000.    Last day of operation was 21 November 2000."

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Darren Reynolds stole (copied without attribution) Marty's photo that I have at the top of these notes and posted 7 photos.