Sunday, December 10, 2023

Gary, WV: US Steel Alpheus Preparation Plant

(Satellite, the prep plant quit in the 1980s.)

All of the tracks in this area were owned by Norfolk & Western.

Howard Akers posted two photos with the comment: "The old U S Steal Tipple in Gary WV."
James Boreman: I ride the Hatfield McCoy Trails and take Trail #30 to Gary. Where would this have been located.
Howard Akers: James Boreman where the belt line crosses over the road coming into Gary from the Welch side there’s some big coal piles in the bottom where the tipple once stood the largest one in the world at one time.
[The comments agree that this prep plant was the largest prep plant in the world at one time.]
Richard Terry: Had a thickener built on top of the prep plant as I recall.
Monty Fulton: Richard, I think there were actually two thickeners on the roof of the plant. Flat land is at a premium in that area.
Ree Fowler: Was this 9 or 14?
Roger Dean: Ree Fowler 9 and 14 put their coal in railroad 100 ton cars and they went into the massive plant and a huge rotary dumped them to the plant. All USS coal in Gary from all the several mines was blended at plant. Best met coal in the world. 2, 4, 6, 9, 14 mines in Gary. When the shut 10 down they still had 100 years of coal left.
Twowaters Jackie Johnson: My DAD went in riding,,,carried out.
Albert Delgado: Twowaters Jackie Johnson I know the feeling 4 generations of underground miners, I was the oxygen man for Black lung sadly in 20 yrs All of the miners died with that tube in their nose it's a bygone era !!
Wayne Baldwin: Nothing but some foundations now however they reversed the conveyor several years back. While the plant was in operation, the conveyor sent the waste boney up the mountain. After the plant was leveled, they conveyed the refuse back down now that they can extract more value from what used to be discarded. [I wonder if they are extracting rare earth metals.]
And yes, this was technically "Alpheus". The town limit signs were there when I first started riding around the WV coal region twenty years ago, but they're gone now too. 😢
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Dennis DeBruler commented on Howard's post
1967 aerial [AR1VBJX00010241]

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