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Cass Scenic Railroad

Just up the Greenbriar River from the town of Cass, WV a small stream called Leatherbark Run joins the Greenbriar. Locals say that the Leatherbark is magical and that anyone who drinks its water won't be able to leave the area. Well, someone must have slipped a few drops into one of my drinks the first time I was there, because I've been to Cass more times than I can remember and don't plan to stop going back any time soon.

Operating on the old Greenbriar, Cheat, and Elk's logging railroad, the Cass Scenic limbs half a mile in 11 miles of track to the summit of Bald Knob, second highest point in the state. Geared shay locomotives shove passengers up the same 10% grades that they once eased logs down. Recent track improvements on the West Virginia Central Railroad have allowed excursions on part of the ex-Western Maryland branch that junctioned with the GC&E at Spruce, WV, once the highest town in the state.

1. On a cloudy morning, a Spruce excursion train waits at the Cass Depot.
2. Shays 4 and 5 prepare for a day's work on the ready track.
3. Grandpa and I pose on Shay 2.
4. Shays 4 and 2 leave town in a flurry of steam.
5. Number 4's work is just beginning as it passes the old C&O water tank.
6. Shays 4 and 2 are beginning to shove hard on today's Bald Knob train at the Back Mountain Road crossing.
7. Ex-Western Maryland 6 (Big 6 to the locals), is hardly working as it shoves a five car Whitaker Station train at Back Mountain Road.
8. At Whitaker Station, a replica logging camp depicts the operations that kept Cass in business for 60 years.
9. This shanty is all that remains at the once busy town of Spruce, WV.
10. Shay 2 does a photo run-by on Shavers Fork of the Cheat River.