Parade of Steam 2021

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park in remote Pocahontas County, West Virginia has some secrets. At least five of those secrets are powerful, geared, steam locomotives that worked hard time on logging railroads all over North America. In fact, several of the steam engines at Cass spent much of their service life in my home province of British Columbia, Canada! As odd as it sounds, I feel closer to home when visiting Cass and being near machines that helped tame the West.

The Parade of Steam is a relatively new tradition at Cass Scenic Railroad, launching after the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad assumed operations of the rolling stock. There were initial concerns about turning over these operations to a for-profit business enterprise, especially with rates for rail excursions increasing substantially, but their care and attention to these historical machines and dedication to their operation has proven their honest intentions.

My husband and I arrived to Cass early on June 19, 2021, not knowing exactly what the turnout would look like for the Parade. Initially it seemed like the turnout would be modest, but within 30 minutes of the beginning of the event the parking lot was packed with cars and folks sitting in lawn chairs with their cameras and cell phones fixed on the track between the old mill and the station. The Parade of Steam featured five of the engines at Cass, the Climax #9 and Shay’s #2, #4, #5, and #11 in an array of configurations that lasted the better part of an hour!

While happy to share some stills from the event, others took some magnificent video, such as this one shared on the KensTrains YouTube channel.

My favorite, Shay #2, “Pacific Coast”

A pair of Shay’s taking off in formation

The icing on the cake was a nice excursion to Bald Knob after the Parade. The excursion was sold out and filled with guests from all around the mid-Atlantic, including a busload of elderly tourists from New Jersey who had a lot of questions about West Virginia. To them, and everyone from out of state, we welcome you and your tourism dollars. There is a lot of great stuff to see and do in West Virginia!

 

Go by Train

This was originally delivered as a speech at the January 7, 2016 meeting of the Mountaineer Toastmasters to satisfy Competant Communicator, Project #4: How to Say It.

Think about the phrase go by train. Does it elicit dusty images of the old west? Streamlined stainless-steel retro visions of the future? Cavernous marble and mahogany train stations? The construction of an industrial superpower? Or what about a peaceful trip with a glass of blackberry wine across the Midwest? The reality is, a trip on Amtrak’s Empire Builder is all of this and more.

Credit: Amtrak

The Empire Builder takes its name from a Great Northern Railroad route dating back to 1929. It travels from Chicago to Seattle and Portland, via the most northern states in the continental United States, providing essential transportation to areas sparsely populated.

Leaving Chicago, going west is a delicate choreography requiring perfect understanding of the behavior of other trains and each of the multitude of tracks. It is amazing to think that something so complex occurs daily on this train, and hundreds more times with other Amtrak, Metra, and freight trains.

Quickly, the steely density of Chicago and Milwaukee give way to a speckling of pristine lakes, where the hearty denizens of Wisconsin brave the icy winds for a late autumn catch. The gentle waves of the lakes delicately carry the final light of day on their backs.

Even though dusk is a distant memory, the Mississippi River is impossible to miss as it guides the train toward the Twin Cities. The broad river shimmers beneath the light of cars, trucks, trains, and towns. At points it seems as if the whole world beyond the train is the broad, commanding river.

Minnesota gives way to North Dakota and dawn breaks over Minot. Those who ate breakfast in the dark emerge to watch sunrise and smoke cigarettes from the icy platform as the train lets the schedule catch up. Some even hustle into the train station to stretch, warm up, or simply even to use a more spacious restroom.

Speeding west toward Montana, the train follows U.S. Route 2, where passengers wave at the hearty roughnecks driving to the oil rigs of the Bakken. The foothills of the Rocky Mountains emerge slowly, gently pulling away the light of day, casting lavender hues on the final glimpse of the plains. A smoke break shortly after dark in Whitefish reveals that you’ve arrived in the mountains. For the remainder of the evening it seems as if the train is never moving straight or level.

Through the night the Rockies give way to the less dramatic but snowier Cascades, half of the train split away to travel to Portland, and you failed to acknowledge the hour or so you spent in Idaho. Dawn is breaking as you descend toward the sea, have conquered the treacherous Stevens Pass.

Too suddenly you’re looking at salt water. The Everett Naval Yard. Two days of peace and tranquility feel insufficient for me, others were excited to go home, go shopping, or get going on the next adventure. If Pete, my car attendant, had not been sufficiently firm, I’d have tried to bargain with the conductor to head back to Chicago to replay the views in reverse.

It took three relaxing days to travel to Seattle from Connellsville, Pennsylvania, a pleasant contrast to the 14 hours of misery flying to Seattle often presents. Next time you go, I strongly urge you to go by train

Go by Train

Portland, Oregon’s Union Station says it best

Credit: Tony Webster

On Where I Live

I live right next to the train tracks. For many, this could seem like a special form of hell. For me, I love it (unless that one CSX engineer is working at 3:00am and decides if they must be up so should everyone else--then I merely love it a little bit less). I never fail to be impressed with how many cars can be moved by so little locomotive power. Some of the trains that roll by have one or two cars, others have nearly 100. It is so obviously the most efficient way to move things when two engines can seemingly glide 100 loaded coal cars with only minimal effort.

I also love it when I’m coming home and I see a train that is traveling in my same direction. I often tie my speed to that of the train so I can follow it side by side until I get home. Heck, sometimes I don’t even stop at my house I follow it as far as I can, before the road and the track diverge.

I find it frustrating how so much of the narrative on trains either refers to days gone by or is presented as a novelty for little boys. This feeling is underlined because many of my best memories were formed on trains—the Southwest Chief, the Coast Starlight, and the Empire Builder.

Trains are amazing.

Conquering the Pacific Northwest: Beyond the 49th Parallel

Approaching the Canadian border on U.S. Route 95 was nerve wracking! Chris and I had married less than a month earlier but we had only told a single person, who was not my dad. We roll up with the top down and my dad jumped at answering every question from the agent. Not knowing any better, he explained that was my fiancée. Satisfied the agent welcomed us to Canada.

After driving a few miles we pulled off the highway to find a geocache. Here Chris discovered bear-proof trashcans. These metal cans are bolted to the ground and have hinged lids that require a person to push a lever inside a handle to open. Opposable thumbs are required! We saw hundreds on the trip and have now noticed them in West Virginia!

Our motel in Cranbrook was a blast from the past. The Nomad Motel dates back to the 1950s. the heyday for family road trips. The layout of the motel, design of the pool area, and the neon sign were all telltale signs. I was in love! Even better, it was owned by a wonderful couple with the most adorable daughter. Despite the age of the motel we were impressed by the unique solar unit used to heat the pool and virtually all of the lighting was eco-friendly. Most meaningful to me was the connection with a part of our collective motoring history. Dinner was next door at Greek restaurant, Apollo, run by another local family. The food was fantastic and satisfying; it perked us up to go for a quick drive through the rest of town. We discovered what looked to be a comprehensive railroad museum. I will have to return to review it, don’t wory! It took no time at all for everyone to fall asleep at the hotel, and it would be another early morning!

I demanded A&W for breakfast! A&W is very different in Canada and I’m mildly addicted to their breakfast sandwiches and poutine. I was absolutely in heaven chomping down on my breakfast sandwiches.

We made a brief stop at the restored pioneer town of Fort Steele in pursuit of a geocache, making our way to a picnic table near the edge of the cliff. We had a sweeping view of the Kootenay River and a railroad wye. Surveying the view we found one train on the main track and one approaching the main track on the wye. A long howl filled the air as the train on the main track loaded with coal came to a stop as quickly as possible. We realized we may be witnessing an actual train wreck. With what appeared to be less than the length of a locomotive the train on the main track yielded to the one on the wye. There is a very good chance if Chris and I hadn’t been there this secret would have stayed within the railroad.

Two trains having a close call along the Kootenay River, as seen from Fort Steele

A lasting souvenir of this stop was severe mosquito bites. There was a single general store near the Fort and figured we could pick up a canister of bug spray to prevent more. If there was ever doubt about the capitalistic tendencies of Canadians It evaporated here. $17 for a medium-sized can of bug spray. I slapped a $20 bill on the counter. Odds were favorable we would be bushwhacking before we came across another store.

Chris and I noticed that the main roads in Canada had rest areas far more often than their American counterparts. One rarely had to drive more than 30 minutes between pull offs that at least had pit toilets, trashcans, and picnic tables. The vast majority of these areas also had impressive views. One such pull off on the way to Radium Hot Springs was along Columbia Lake. The mosquitos would have eaten us alive. Thankfully, now lathered in bug spray, we stopped to use the facilities and discovered an adorable relative of the squirrel: the marmot. Marmots are a bit larger than your average squirrel and they live in rock piles or underground burrows. Alternatively, they live in the gap on the underside of a jersey barrier. The friendly animals stole our hearts with their chubby bellies and chirps.

A friendly marmot poses next to it's home at a pull off rest area

From here, the day featured an all-star cast of Radium Hot Springs, Banff, Lake Louise, and the Kicking Horse Pass. We encountered more animals, two five-star hotels, glacier fed lakes, and revisited family stories. Stay tuned!

Hills and Heritage

Pausing from studying for my candidacy exam on Saturday, I had the opportunity to play tour guide in Randolph and Pocahontas counties in West Virginia. Without even consciously thinking about it, transportation was a central theme to our activities.

We kicked off the trip with some geocaching, taking us out Kingwood Pike from Morgantown to West Virginia Route 92 in Reedsville, then down Route 92 into Durbin.

Our first stop beyond Morgantown was along the Decker’s Creek Rail Trail in Reedsville. Reedsville is the end of the trail and seemingly a world away from the trail’s other end on the waterfront in Morgantown. The trail is quieter and rather than hemmed into narrow valleys with roads and the creek, it is between a farm and a sprawling industrial operation. The trail is, almost uncharacteristically, in a broad open valley.

After Reedsville, the next community is Arthurdale. Arthurdale was one of the planned communities of the New Deal intended to move impoverished miners and farmers and place them into a contemporary rural community where they could be self-sufficient. The idea lost support by World War II and less than a decade after its beginning the project officially ended. The entire town is now a National Historic District.

We continued on through the towns of Newburg and Belington, with a stop in the graveyard of the oldest church in Barbour County. We met up with Corridor H, which is possibly the greatest political quagmire in highway history, and followed it to Crystal Springs Road to follow Route 92 through central Elkins and even witnessed part of a Civil War reenactment in Beverly. After following some slow moving tree removal equipment over Cheat Mountain we arrived in Durbin.

West Virginia is home to a number of excellent scenic tourist trains, the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad’s Durbin Rocket is no exception! The two-hour trip follows the Greenbrier River south toward Cass. After about 45 minutes the train takes a stop along the river where passengers can get out and, in my case, wade in the river. On such a hot day the cool water felt great, I could have stood in that river all day. On the trip back to Durbin the train stopped at a creek to take on water. Here they demonstrated how the steam engine is able to pump water up from the creek. The train took on about 1000 gallons and took about 10 minutes. The minutes seemed to drag on, but a rate of 100 gallons per minute actually seemed pretty impressive.

The Greenbrier River from the Durbin Rocket

Just before returning to Durbin a rain began to set in. We grabbed two quick geocaches on Cheat Mountain, one at an overlook and one at the summit, and hurried on to find a place for dinner. We lucked out and found some excellent homecooking at the Dailey Grille, seemingly the only place to grab a bite in Dailey. That country fried steak will not soon be forgotten.

The finishing touch of the day was visiting the American Mountain Theater in Elkins. The Branson-style show was non-stop entertainment, whether it was the contemporary country songs, comedic dialogue, or deeply moving gospel selections. Most impressive, the incredible talents performing also perform the less glamorous tasks of operating a theater, from scooping popcorn to ticket sales. Of course, the highlight of the show was a crack at Corridor H, the road that’ll be completed in the lifetime of the host’s grandchildren!

Thurmond: The Ghost Town of the New River Gorge

Most who know of the New River Gorge in West Virginia immediately think of the impressive bridge that crosses far above the river and the world-class outdoor recreation opportunities on and next to the river. It is difficult to imagine the New River as a working river today, winding between hardworking mining towns, defined as much by the railroad tracks as by the river itself. Thurmond offers a rare glimpse into the past of the gorge.

The journey to Thurmond, for most who venture there today, begins at a wholly modern Exxon station next to wholly modern U.S. Route 19 above the town of Glen Jean (though when I'm here I always think of Hank Williams, who was discovered dead a few miles up the road at Burdette’s Pure Oil, a now demolished service station, in Oak Hill). But the modern experience ends as you descend into Glen Jean. Things are largely as they were 50 years ago in Glen Jean and after a few turns and the blink of the eye you're passing through Red Star and Harvey while weaving back and forth across a rail line and Dunloup Creek. It is quite evident that the railroad beat the road through here, because they definitely have an easier right of way. Then again, no one in a hurry goes to Thurmond anymore.

While the trip from Glen Jean is only about seven miles, getting there the first time seems to take forever. Between the narrow, serpentine road, the scenery, and the ruins--there is a lot to take in. Immediately before the town of Thurmond is a one-lane, open grate bridge shared with the short-line railroad to carry you over the New River. Here you are at the beautifully restored Thurmond Depot. The depot being the other way to find this town--Thurmond is a flag stop on Amtrak’s thrice weekly Cardinal.

The beautifully restored Thurmond Depot (July 2010)

A few people still live in the hills above Thurmond, but more trains pass through the town each day on the CSX mainline than live in the town. But through the painstaking efforts of the National Park Service and numerous volunteers, the town site is stabilized and a large part of downtown Thurmond is intact.

One of the most notable characteristics of the town is that rather than have a “main street,” the town was built along the railroad. Only a sidewalk separates buildings from the railroad tracks. Though the trains do run through town much faster than they have in days gone by! There are few towns who still have a main drag not dominated by the automobile, one example being Renovo, Pennsylvania. Others have main streets where tracks used to be--towns defined by the rails but were superseded by cars.

Main street of Thurmond, WV (July 2010)

When Thurmond was a thriving mining and hard-working town the beauty and tranquility seen now was not present, this is challenging to imagine. At that time the gorge had been logged bare and a thick haze hung in the air. Indeed the bountiful timber served as a primary driver for the Chesapeake and Ohio to build the rail line through the gorge. There were also homes and businesses dotting both sides of the river. Signs of human life surrounded people in the narrow gorge. It is difficult to envision that the foundations of old homes and businesses not only represented people’s lives, but their pride, their joy, and their dreams. It is also amazing to think of how quickly nature reclaims the land after humans walk away.

Coal tipple, Thurmond, WV (July 2010)