Thurmond, New River Gorge National Park, West Virginia

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/27/2025	1 miles	58 minutes	36'	1.0 mph	123 miles

Parking: 

• Parking Lot, McKendree Road, Oak Hill, WV

Map:

• There is a historical map outside of the Train Depot

Directions:

• From the parking area, take stairs up to the railroad tracks. Walk across the bridge. Explore the depot, then turn left and walk down the path next to the railroad tracks. Return the same way.

Our last day in the park, and I still wanted to see Thurmond, another mining ghost town. I had seen a photo of the railroad station and thought it might be nice to sketch. It was a long drive from Sandstone Falls to Thurmond. The road was paved at least. You can drive across the one lane bridge, right next to the train tracks. It's very narrow. I didn't want to do it, lol. So, we parked and walked across the bridge. There are places for walkers to pull over when a car goes by, which we had to do. Krumm was brave about walking across the bridge. He used to be more nervous walking on them. 

On the other side of the bridge is the railroad station. It's also a visitor center, but it isn't open until Memorial Day. There were brochures outside which talked about the buildings in this ghost town. The railroad used to be the C&O railroad, which has now become the CSX railroad. The tracks are still active, but the ghost town is just closed historic buildings. We saw a bank, town hall, etc. It would have been more interesting if we could have gone inside the buildings, but it was still worth a stop. I did a little sketching of a building that was used for coal. Trains would drop coal below the tracks. A crusher would crush the coal. Then elevators would bring the coal back up and drop them back into the trains. At least that's my understanding. Too bad the visitor center wasn't open to find out more.

Next to a pullout on the bridge, for pedestrians to use when cars go by