(The following story by Melissa Harris appeared on the Baltimore Sun website on August 24.)
CASS, W.Va. — Atop the third highest peak in West Virginia, an eerie whistle snaked its way through the thick birch and spruce trees. The sound echoed from a churning 1945 Shay steam locomotive, the last one ever built.
During the warm months, the 162-ton brute carries hundreds of tourists and a few campers up and down the Cass Scenic Railroad, the former artery of a century-old logging operation in the Allegheny Mountains.
Local residents and railway buffs fought to preserve the line in the 1960s, after a paper company moved on to fresher forests and hired a scrapper to tear up the railroad.
For many who stayed behind, the storybook railroad remains an important source of jobs and a memorial to their ancestors, many of whom scaled the trees or labored in the lumber mills of eastern West Virginia.
For the tourists – who can take day-trips up Back Allegheny Mountain or camp in an antique caboose perched at the end of the line – the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park is an escape.
When you’re standing at the railway’s peak, hearing only the swirls of the wind, overlooking a valley of bountiful forest and farmland, the place quiets the mind.
“You’re sure not going to have any traffic jams in these parts,” said train engineer Danny Seldomridge, as he leaned out the locomotive’s window, checking the track for hikers.
Seldomridge’s father repaired the tracks and locomotives for the old timber operation. Now heis considered the “senior man” on the Cass Scenic Railroad, having steered Shays since 1983.
Two railroad buffs recently drove from Pennsylvania to Cass to ride with Seldomridge, believing he has spent more time at the helm of a Shay than any other man working a railroad today.
Seldomridge, 52, said that in his youth, he wanted nothing more than to leave the hills. But he didn’t stay away for long – just one summer in Washington, D.C. – before he grew tired of the city.
“Out here, I can fish and hunt and be laid back,” he said. “Everything’s better.”
Caboose for two
The Cass Scenic Railroad runs from May to October with Seldomridge at the helm for every trip. My fiance, Eric, and I visited in early summer, driving five hours from Baltimore to Cass and spending two nights in a caboose perched on the side of a mountain.
Conductors used to haul the steel, World War II-era car to the end of the 11-mile line and then unhitch it for every overnight stay. Now, they park it at about 4,800 feet above sea level for the entire season.
Inside the red caboose are three bunks, a kitchen table, refrigerator, coal-heated stove and metal basin for washing dishes. Clean latrines with toilet paper and hand soap are about 50 yards away. A railroad employee delivered water every day.
Our “front porch” was a wooden platform with a 180-degree view of the Greenbrier River Valley and the Monongahela National Forest.
There, we read, ate meals and listened to folk tunes on a battery-powered radio. Every night at dusk, a lone doe roamed from picnic table to picnic table, chewing on scraps dropped by children riding the train earlier in the day.
At night, we played cards under the glow of lanterns. Before tucking ourselves into our sleeping bags, we peeked out a caboose window and watched thousands of lightning bugs dance.
Railroader’s paradise
Will Hairston of Harrisonburg, Va., came to Cass with his teenage son and Boston-based brother for a five-hour day trip up and down the mountain. The train stops twice – at Whittaker Station, a former logging camp, and Bald Knob, the end of the line.
Hairston said his brother is a railroad buff and that Cass is something of a paradise for fans of Shay locomotives, the most widely used geared steam engines in the world.
“It’s like a magnet,” said Hairston, 47, who grew up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. “Our main purpose in the area was to attend our parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, but my brother is such a train fan that we had to tack on a trip to Cass.”
The slang term for a Shay locomotive is a sidewinder because its drive shaft rotates on the exposed sides of the engine.
Each Shay was custom-ordered for the route it would work. The train Hairston rode was pulled by No. 6, which was built for transporting coal on the Western Maryland Railroad. But No. 6 hauled coal for only four years before being donated to Baltimore’s B&O Railroad Museum and retired.
In 1981, however, the scenic railroad arranged a trade. The State of West Virginia would send the museum Shay No. 1 and another locomotive in exchange for the pristine No. 6.
“The one thing that really impressed me was the sound of the train,” Hairston said. “It has this hauntingly beautiful sound. It made me think of times past, and how people heard that train whistle when the mail arrived or they needed a ride somewhere else.”
Turning to tourism
During the final days of the logging operation, railway fans had already begun visiting Cass, among them Russell Baum, a well-traveled sporting-goods distributor from Pennsylvania.
Baum had visited railroads in 49 states and Canada and Mexico and especially admired logging railroads. As Baum rode one of the first scrapping trips up to Bald Knob, he got the idea to turn Cass into a tourist attraction modeled on railroads he had seen in North Carolina and Colorado.
In 1961, the year after the town’s lumber mill closed, Baum shared his idea with Cass’ mayor and a local motel owner, who contacted the editor of the West Virginia Hillbilly newspaper in Richwood to ask for a meeting. The editor, Jim Comstock, proposed taking the matter to the state legislature, which was meeting in a special session the next day.
Comstock led Baum straight to the office of the house speaker and, within 24 hours, Baum addressed the assembly on a resolution to halt the junking of the railroad.
“To start with, it would be the operation of a real railroad – most of the tourist lines are built for the occasion and for the historian type person, [and] therefore lack interest,” Baum told the legislature, according to Roy B. Clarkson’s book On Beyond Leatherbark: The Cass Saga. The railroad “does not merely go around in a circle or over an uninteresting stretch of land. The other lines operating in the East can come nowhere near matching its scenery. … It travels the highest point East of the Mississippi River of any railroad.”
The measure halting the destruction of the railroad passed the House that day and the Senate the next.
Alone, or are we?
Eric and I approached the weekend with the erroneous belief that we would be alone atop Back Allegheny Mountain.
We quickly learned that we were sharing the campground and groomed hiking trails with deer, slugs, butterflies, insects, tadpoles, hawks and toads.
But we didn’t like hearing sounds from things we couldn’t see. Branches would crack or tall grass would rustle, and we would freeze. Eric would dart his eyes through the forest in search of the noise’s source. It was always a deer.
I tried to shrug off the noises as quickly as possible. Given the beauty of our surroundings, I was ashamed I couldn’t be wholeheartedly at ease.
But within a few minutes of a scare, the tension in my shoulders would dissipate. I would spot a butterfly fluttering above a flower. Or a cool breeze would blow across my legs.
I’d turn to the next page in my book, and my mind would be quiet again.
If you go
Getting there
Cass is a five-hour drive from Baltimore, with the last 70 miles of the trip on two-lane roads. It’s best to call the railroad office for directions, rather than rely on Mapquest or Google. Avoiding Back Mountain Road is recommended.
Rails
Cass Scenic Railroad State Park, cassrailroad.com, 800-225-5982. E-mail: cassrailroad@wvdnr.gov. The railroad runs three separate routes: the two-hour run to Whittaker Station, the 4 ¿ -hour run to Bald Knob and a five-hour run to the historic town of Spruce. The railroad operates May to October. For most of September, the trains run only Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. For fall-foliage tours, the train operates seven days from Sept. 26 to Oct. 26. Seating is not guaranteed on most of the open-air rail cars. However, the enclosed Leatherbark Creek car offers limited reserved seating. General admission tickets are $16-$30 per person round trip for adults, depending on the route selected and the day or season of the visit. Children and seniors receive discounts.
Lodging
There are a few options at the Cass Scenic Railroad:
Caboose: Renting the caboose atop Bald Knob costs $99 per night plus train fare. Weekends are booked until the end of the season, so visitors must stay during the week or reserve the caboose for next year.
Cabin: Renting the wilderness cabin atop Bald Knob – a ¿ -mile hike from the end of the line – costs $46 per night plus train fare. The cabin is considerably more rustic than the caboose. There are no latrines, and railroad employees do not deliver fresh water.
Cottages: Train riders also can stay in “company houses” at the bottom of Back Allegheny Mountain in Cass for $111 per night for four people on weekends and holidays.
Hotels: The Highland Inn (highland-inn.com, 888-466-4682), in Monterey, Va., is on the route to Cass. It is a full-service hotel with a restaurant. The building, formerly the Hotel Monterey, is more than 100 years old.
For a luxury stay, try Snowshoe Mountain Resort (877-441-4386, snowshoemtn.com), a thousand feet up from the railroad. The year-round resort – on a 3 ¿ -mile ridge top – offers skiing, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, golf, a spa and an indoor-outdoor water park. Resort guests can horseback ride or mountain bike on groomed trails in the summer from Snowshoe to Bald Knob.
Attractions
Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observatory (nrao.edu, 304-456-2150). Atop Bald Knob, it’s hard to miss a large white disc – the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world – jutting out of the fields of gold and green in Green Bank. According to guidebooks, the telescope would dwarf the Statue of Liberty if the two were set shoulder to shoulder. The observatory is open daily Memorial Day through Labor Day. It also has limited hours in the off-season.
Greenbrier River Rail Trail’s (greenbrierrivertrail.com) northern trail head is at Cass. The 79-mile trail was converted from an abandoned railway, which followed the Greenbrier River from Cass to Lewisburg, W.Va. Only five miles of the trail, around Marlinton, are paved; most of the surface is rough or fine gravel, requiring thick bike tires. There are public toilets, drinking water and B&Bs along the way. Bikes and horses are available for rent.
Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad (mountainrail.meer.net, 877-686-7245). Three railway trips are available on this line located in Elkins, W. Va. The trips take visitors to the ghost town of Spruce and along a high bridge above a rushing waterfall.
More information
Pocahontas County Convention & Visitors Bureau in Marlinton, 800-336-7009, pocahontascountywv.com.
5 things to know before you go
Arrive early to get a seat. There are limited seats per car on the Cass line, and the railroad counts on some passengers standing along the way.
Camping equipment is required. If you choose to stay overnight, make sure you have the necessities: cold-weather sleeping bag, camp stove, lanterns, compass, etc.
A map is a good idea. Topographic maps can be purchased for $7 at the Monongahela National Forest ranger station in Bartow, W. Va.
Bring a jacket. The weather atop the mountain is about 10 to 15 degrees cooler than it is in Cass, which is typically 5 to 10 degrees cooler than in Baltimore.
Don’t bring a pet. There are no pets (and no smoking) allowed in the cars. Kennel service is available on-site for a fee.