Cass Scenic Railroad State Park is a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

and

heritage railroad A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) ...

located in

Cass Cass may refer to: People and fictional characters * Cass (surname), a list of people * Cass (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Big Cass, ring name of wrestler William Morrissey * Cass, in British band Skunk Anansie * Cass, ...

Pocahontas County, West Virginia Pocahontas County is a county located in the eastern part of the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,869. Its county seat is Marlinton. The county was established in 1821. It is named after the daughter o ...

. It consists of the Cass Scenic Railroad, a long 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) ...

owned by the

West Virginia State Rail Authority The West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT) is the state agency responsible for transportation in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The Department of Transportation serves an umbrella organization for four subsidiary agencies which ar ...

and operated by the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad. The park also includes the former

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

of Cass and a portion of the summit of

Bald Knob Bald Knob is the highest summit of Back Allegheny Mountain in Pocahontas County, West Virginia and is part of Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. At an altitude of above sea level, Bald Knob is the third-highest point in West Virginia and the A ...

, the highest point on

Back Allegheny Mountain Back Allegheny Mountain is a long mountain ridge in eastern West Virginia. It is part of the Shavers Fork Mountain Complex in the Allegheny Mountains, Allegheny Range of the Appalachians. Geography Back Allegheny Mountain runs north to south a ...

History

Founded in 1901 by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company (now

WestRock WestRock was an American corrugated packaging company and in 2024 merged with Smurfit Kappa to become Smurfit Westrock. It was formed in July 2015 after the merger of MeadWestvaco and RockTenn. WestRock was the 2nd largest American packaging ...

), Cass was built as a

to serve the needs of the men who worked in the nearby mountains cutting

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

and hemlock for the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company, a subsidiary of WVP&P. At one time, the

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

at Cass was the largest double-band sawmill in the world. It processed an estimated of

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

during its lifetime. In 1901 work started on the

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

, which climbs Back Allegheny Mountain. The railroad eventually reached a meadow area, now known as Whittaker Station, where a

logging camp A logging camp (or lumber camp) is a transitory work site used in the logging industry. Before the second half of the 20th century, these camps were the primary place where lumberjacks would live and work to fell trees in a particular area. Many ...

was established for the immigrants who were building the railroad. The railroad soon reached to the top of Gobblers Knob, and then a location on top of the mountain known as 'Spruce'. The railroad built a small town at that location, complete with a company store, houses, a hotel, and a doctor's office. Work soon commenced on logging the

red spruce ''Picea rubens'', commonly known as red spruce, is a species of spruce native to eastern North America, ranging from eastern Quebec and Nova Scotia, west to the Adirondack Mountains and south through New England along the Appalachians to wester ...

trees, which grew in the higher elevations. The WVP&P originally had only been interested in the red spruce for the purpose of making pulp, which would be turned into paper. It was not until several years later that the company realized that the mountain held a fortune in hardwoods, such as maple, cherry, birch and oak. The company decided that it would build a mill in the town of Cass, which could process the hardwoods. The railroad eventually extended its track to the top of Bald Knob, the third-highest mountain peak in West Virginia. The red spruce in that area was logged out, and the track was torn up in the early 1910s. The track was also extended to a valley near the town of Spruce, at a bend in the Shavers Fork of the

Cheat River The Cheat River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in eastern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the Un ...

. The WVP&P set up a new town there, with about 30 company houses, a large company store, a school, and a pulp mill, where the red spruce trees could be processed on the spot. The new town was also named Spruce, and the former town received its current name of Old Spruce. In June 1942, WVP&P sold the Cass operation to

Mower Lumber Company A mower is a person or machine that cuts (mows) grass or other plants that grow on the ground. Usually mowing is distinguished from reaping, which uses similar implements, but is the traditional term for harvesting grain crops, e.g. with reaper ...

, which operated the line until July 1, 1960, cutting

second-growth A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused disturbances, such as timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or equivalently disruptive natura ...

timber off

Cheat Mountain Cheat Mountain is an exceptionally high and rugged ridge situated in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. It is about long (north to south) and more than five miles (8 km) wide at its widest. Its highest point is at its so ...

. The mill and railroad were shut down by Mower in 1960, due to the rapid decline of the timber industry in the region. Following the 1960 closure, the rail line, land, and all equipment and rolling stock, were sold to a holding company named the

Don Mower Lumber Company Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name * Don, Benin, a town in Benin * Don, Dang, a village and hill station in Dang district, Gu ...

(no relation to the former Mower Lumber Company), and the railroad was conveyed to the Midwest Raleigh Corporation, which started to scrap the railroad and equipment. However, a group of local businessmen, led by

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

train aficionado

Russell Baum Russell may refer to: People * Russell (given name) * Russell (surname) * Lady Russell (disambiguation) * Lord Russell (disambiguation) ** Bertrand Russell *Justice Russell (disambiguation) Places *Russell Island (disambiguation) *Mount Russel ...

, convinced the West Virginia state legislature to make the Cass Railroad a state park. In 1963, the first tourist excursion train left the Cass depot for Whittaker Station, north. The railroad was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on July 12, 1974. In 1977, the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park took possession of the entire

of Cass and the old hardwood mill there. In 2015, the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad assumed operation of the railroad under a lease agreement with the State of West Virginia.

Current operations

Today, visitors ride on historic converted log cars (similar to

flatcar A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on trucks (US) or bogies (UK) at each end. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry extra heavy or extra large loads are mounted ...

s), pushed along by a powerful geared logging locomotive. Traveling on of

track laid in 1901 by immigrant workers, the line traverses the steep

grades Grade most commonly refers to: * Grading in education, a measurement of a student's performance by educational assessment (e.g. A, pass, etc.) * A designation for students, classes and curricula indicating the number of the year a student has reach ...

. The railroad owns eight

Shay locomotive The Shay locomotive is a geared steam locomotive that originated and was primarily used in North America. The locomotives were built to the patents of Ephraim Shay, who has been credited with the popularization of the concept of a ''geared st ...

s, one

Heisler locomotive The Heisler locomotive is one of the three major types of geared steam locomotives and the last to be patented. Charles L. Heisler received a patent for the design in 1892, following the construction of a prototype in 1891. Somewhat similar to a ...

, and one

Climax locomotive A Climax locomotive is a type of geared steam locomotive A geared steam locomotive is a type of steam locomotive which uses gearing, usually reduction gearing, in the drivetrain, as opposed to the common directly driven design. This gearin ...

, which is being restored by volunteers of the Mountain State Railroad and Logging Historical Association. The Heisler and the Climax, both made in

, were competition to Shay's geared locomotive design. Three trips are available: a two-hour round trip to Whittaker Station, a five-hour round trip to the abandoned site of the ghost town of

Spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

(once the coldest and highest town east of the

Rockies The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

), and a five-hour round trip to

, the third highest point in the state. Former company houses have been refurbished and are available for rent through Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. A small cabin on Bald Knob is also available for rent, and

caboose A caboose is a crewed North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train. Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were formerly required in switching and shunting; as well as in keeping a lookout for load ...

s can be reserved for private use as well. Town and shop tours are available daily to visitors who would like to learn more about the town and its lumber industry, and see how the rare geared locomotives are maintained by the Cass shop crew. A tour of a recreated logging camp is available at Whittaker.

2015 transfer of operations

In October 2014, it was announced that the

West Virginia Division of Natural Resources The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources (WVDNR) is an agency of the government of the U.S. state of West Virginia. While formerly known as the cabinet-level Department of Natural Resources, it is now part of the West Virginia Department ...

(WVDNR) was transferring their administrative responsibilities to another state agency, the West Virginia State Rail Authority (WVSRA). Under the new arrangement, the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad (D&GV) will assume day-to-day operations of the line as part of their existing contract with the WVSRA. D&GV will control scheduling of trains, staffing train excursions, and maintaining the railroad and its equipment. The takeover began in 2015. The WVDNR will maintain ownership of the right-of-way and equipment, as well as continue staffing and maintaining the non-railroad portions of the park, including the historic company town of Cass, the visitor's center, and the overnight cottage rentals that the park offers. Listed below is a table of locomotives found at Cass and Durbin.

Locomotives

File:BackAlleghenyMountain.jpg,

from Whittaker Station File:2003-05-16 Cass RR Shay Engine, Cass, WV USA.jpg, Cass Shay #2 at Cass Station File:Cass Scenic Railroad State Park - Shay 4 and Shay 11.jpg, Shay #4 and #11 pull the Bald Knob train up the mountain File:Cass Scenic Railroad State Park - Shay 4.jpg, Cass Shay #4 File:Cass Engine.JPG, Cass Shay #6 prepares to depart Cass in 2004 File:Western Maryland Shay 6 on Cass Scenic Railroad.JPG, Shay #6 at Whittaker Station

References

Citations

Other sources

* * *

External links

*
Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad

Mountain State Railroad & Logging Historical Association web site

WV Railfan website

* {{authority control Heritage railroads in West Virginia State parks of West Virginia Railroad museums in West Virginia Protected areas established in 1961 Logging railroads in the United States Museums in Pocahontas County, West Virginia Protected areas of Pocahontas County, West Virginia Historic American Engineering Record in West Virginia Historic districts in Pocahontas County, West Virginia 1961 establishments in West Virginia IUCN Category III Railways with Zig Zags Railway lines opened in 1961 Museums on the National Register of Historic Places in West Virginia