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FT-COL19 Waddell Coal Hopper Set
The Waddell Coal Co. came into being in the late 1800s when their breaker was built in Winton, near Scranton, located in Pennsylvania's northern anthracite coal region. Originally serviced by the New York, Ontario and Western Railway, which operated in northern New Jersey, upstate New York, and northeastern Pennsylvania, Waddell began making improvements in the early 1900s, and coal from the local mines was washed, sorted, and distributed by the O&W mainly to the New York City metropolitan area. With the advent of new roads, trucking, and the decline of coal as a home heating fuel, the O&W began to fail. By the late 1930s, while the O&W neared bankruptcy, the Waddell Coal Co. continued to clean and distribute coal to rural areas along the line. In the early 1950s the Company bought five of the O&W's small twin-bay rib-sided hoppers, and had the shops paint them in a striking orange, black and white scheme, to advertise and distribute their coal to local merchants. Although fires destroyed parts of the Waddell Breaker complex over the next twenty years, coal continued to be processed there through the 1980s! Demolished in 2003, a housing development is now planned for the site.
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