End of the Road

West Virginia State Highway 310 is only about 15 miles long, and runs from a junction with US 50 in Grafton on its southern end, to a junction with US 250 in Fairmont on its northern end. About halfway between the two towns is the Valley Falls State Park, where I took the photos from a couple of posts down the page. It is a narrow, winding, mountain road for most of its journey, but passes through some very pretty scenery.

This picture is taken on 310 South at US 50. If you look closely, you will notice little marks in the lower right-hand corners of each sign. I thought the one on the 310 shield was a bullet hole at first, but when I examined the high resolution picture from my camera, I saw it is a sticker with the shape of the state of West Virginia on it, probably a WVDOT asset sticker of some sort. The other signs also have a sticker, but it appears to be different from the other one. Even at 8 megapixels, I couldn't tell what they say.

Grafton's US 50 Drive Ins

Let's take a little tour of the drive-in fast food establishments along US 50 in Grafton. Of course, what is a fast food tour without a stop at Dairy Queen? This DQ has an old sign that is in great shape, showing an Eskimo girl in a parka, holding a cone of DQ Ice Cream. Unlike a lot of places where people eat ice cream year round, this DQ was already closed for the winter season. It would seem to me that the first half of the "Hot Eats, Cool Treats" slogan would apply all year long, but not here. It makes me wonder how the owners get by during the winter with a commercial building not producing any revenue for much of the year.

Our next picture is the other half of the Dairy Royalty, the Dairy King. The King is about a mile or less from the Queen, so maybe that is convenient for their late night frosty rendezvous. Makes me wonder if the Dairy Queen has bigger cups than the Dairy King! Yeah, it IS a bad attempt at humor.



In between them lies one of Grafton's oldest drive-ins, Biggies Hamburgers & Hot Dogs. Biggies has been around for a long time, and continues to serve both local Graftonians and hungry travelers motoring down Route 50.




Finally, we come to the T&L Oldies Diner. T&L has several locations, and this one is located beside the roadside cabin motel pictured in one of my earlier posts. In fact, the restaurant is where you rent the cottages, as noted on the banner.

Valley Falls

Downstream several miles from the Tygart Dam, the Tygart Valley River flows through over some small, yet picturesque waterfalls. This series of falls is called Valley Falls, and is located about halfway between the towns of Grafton and Fairmont off of WV Highway 310. I got out this morning to get some photos, even though it was overcast. It was definitely very cold outside, and later in the day we got some snow, but not enough to stick to the ground.

This first shot shows the largest falls in the foreground, and another just a bit further upstream. The Tygart Valley River flows into the Monongahela River, which ends at the Ohio River, which in turn drains into the Mississippi and on to the Gulf of Mexico. This part of West Virginia is just west of the Eastern Continental Divide, which separates the drainage areas that end up in the Gulf of Mexico, primarily via the Mississippi/Missouri River System; from the water that flows eastward from the Appalachian Mountains directly into the Atlantic Ocean.


Valley Falls, WV

The next view is the same set of falls from a little further downstream.


Valley Falls, WV

You really can't top Mother Nature for arranging a scene. Sometimes, she has it laying on the ground right in front of you. This red maple leaf lying among the other colors of autumn caught my attention as I walked by.


Red Maple Leaf at Valley Falls, WV

Finally, on the way into and out of the falls area lies Rock Lake. The next scene popped out at me as I drove by, so of course, I had to stop and capture it.


Rock Lake near Valley Falls, WV

Railroad Switch

Sometimes a small component can be a very large point of failure if it doesn't operate correctly. One such instance is that of the railroad switch. While small in comparison to many of the other pieces of a functional railroad infrastructure, the switch has the job of making sure the trains get onto the right track. Disaster can occur if a switch malfunctions or is placed into the wrong position.

Here is a picture of a switch that I took this week. This is a manually-operated switch. A person has to actually be there to rotate the handle and put the tracks of the switch into the proper configuration to route a train to the track it should be on.

Manual railroad switch at the CSX yard (formerly B&O) in Grafton, WV

As is easy to imagine, snow can get in the way of the proper operation of a railroad switch. The snow either has to be cleared by hand, or in some cases, heaters are installed to keep the rails at a temperature above freezing.

The animation below demonstrates the operation of a railroad switch:


Animation from Wikipedia Commons

Anyone who has played with the layouts of toy electric trains should readily recognize these small, but vital component, of the railroad infrastructure.