Family history tracks the decline of coal

Why do I get the feeling that Karen Saul’s (“Outlook for coal depends on election,” June 28 letter) outlook on the decline of coal industry jobs in the western panhandle of Virginia is more about the loss of profits for coal company executives than it is about the individual workers?

Presumably, we would continue to poison the air we breathe for a few hundred coal jobs, which are destined to end anyway. My father worked for the B&O in northern West Virginia servicing the mines there for 35 years. All the mines he worked are gone now.

Pick up the August issue of Trains magazine and look on page 24. Compare the trackage that was present in 1949 when I was 8 years old with what it is now. You are looking at the future of coal mining.

Coal mining is not in the best interest of the state of Virginia. Don’t be fooled.

GENE STUCKEY
ROANOKE

Weather Journal

5 hours ago

1. 41-vehicle wreck ties up traffic Sunday on I-81 in Rockbridge County 

2. Virginia Tech football roster has holes on picture day

3. Medicare penalties hit hospitals in Roanoke, New River Valleys

4. Microfestivus beer event gets downtown Roanoke hopping 

5. McFarling: 2 little numbers are a big hurdle for Virginia Tech football 

6. Arrest made in case of missing Nelson County teen

7. DAN CASEY: Copter cost still stirring up dust

8. Roanoke farmers markets making local foods more accessible

9. Virginia attorney general's office grows under Ken Cuccinelli 

10. Man's drowning is 5th in Lynchburg area