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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

3rd Day Watoga S.P WV-Cass Scenic Railroad S.P

There is a lot of history around the railway that served as the main transportation between isolated villages carrying coal ,lumber  or other sorts of freight.

60 years ago the lumber in the area was cut and used to built railways and housing ,when there were no more trees to cut the trains and other equipment was useless and almost was used as scrap metal,but was saved by the State and old coal locomotives are used today for tourist trips to different locations.

Cass Scenic Railroad S.P WV      Cass Scenic Railroad S.P WV

As we have never took a such a trip back in time we decided to play “tourists” and drove to Cass Railway station for a short 2 hour trip to Whittaker Station and back through nice scenery speeding around 14 mile per hour  when it is on a level stretch,some parts of the tracks were up hill and then we could see the black smoke coming out of the engine as it burns coal .

Cass Scenic Railroad S.P WV            Cass Scenic Railroad S.P WV

All the operation was done as it used to be done years ago,filling water to the tank,holding the breaks going down hill and crossing rails was done manually when a crew member jumped from the train and pushed a handle on the tracks to divert the train to another rail.

Cass Scenic Railroad S.P WV 

On the way when the smoke hit the trees , the light beams made a beautiful picture and we felt like slipping back in time.

Cass Scenic Railroad S.P WV

At the Cass station the “porters” where on a day off so Shula took control…

                                    Cass Scenic Railroad S.P WV

Coming back to our campground the skies were clear and we were greeted by a family of deer that were just roaming around our camper,it looks like they are used to people and may even be second or third generation in the park.

             Watoga S.P WV-Deer at the C.G      Cass Scenic Railroad S.P WV

Those were the days…

2 comments:

Jim and Sandie said...

I love, love, love trains. Even more than waterfalls. This was a great post.

John and Carol said...

Hope you enjoyed the train trip as much as we do the ones we take. Riding old trains is one of our favorite activities.