Cass Scenic Railroad, June 1999
I was looking up some photos for someone and ended up scanning this set of 35mm negatives from a trip taken in 1999.
Cass Scenic Railroad State Park is located near the Snowshoe ski area in West Virginia. It includes the lumber mill town of Cass and eleven miles of standard-gauge railroad used until 1960 by Cass & Mower Lumber Company to bring logs down from the mountain to their mill at Cass.
Red spruce logging started on Cheat Mountain shortly after 1900 and continued through old-growth and second-growth trees until 1960, although the operation was in severe decline after 1950. The railroad was sold to a scrapper after it ceased operation, and a last-ditch effort by dedicated preservationists saved it and eventually got the state involved in restoring the town and railroad as a tourist attraction.
In an unrelenting climb of eleven miles up grades as steep as 11 percent (two percent is considered steep on most common-carrier railroads) and through two switchbacks, geared Shay locomotives pushing passenger cars rebuilt from logging flat cars take visitors to the top of Bald Knob, at an elevation of 4,842 feet.
Many of the houses in Cass have been restored and may be rented as tourist accomodations.
Presbyterian Church converted to community center
Remaining half of the hotel; originally this building was double the width and had porches/balconies on both the first and second floors.
Masonic Hall
The men who worked in the mill were mostly skilled workers who lived a fairly settled life in the town. The men who worked on the mountain cutting timber, mostly young bucks full of adventure, were called "wood hicks." They lived in camps on the mountain and only came down to the town on Saturday night. The enterprises that accomodated them were across the river in East Cass, and few traces of that remain.
Drunken and rowdy wood hicks who found their way into the respectable part of Cass were likely to sober up in the windowless brick jail beneath the mayor's office and council chamber.
The boiler house and brick engine room are the only structures that remain amid the burned-out ruins of the mill. In its heyday the lumbering operation employed more than 3,000 men and shipped both finished wood products and wood pulp for paper production. Every morning the C&O Railroad picked up a 44-car train loaded with the mill's output.
A toppled band saw rusts in the rubble.
Rail passenger station in the foreground. The big building in the background was the company-run store, and now houses a gift shop and a very pleasant rustic restaurant.
Workers preparing Shay geared locomotives for the day's work. Most of the Shays at Cass are 90-ton locomotives that burn bituminous (soft) coal.
Big 6 was the last Shay locomotive built, in 1945, and worked for four years on the Western Maryland Railroad taking coal trains up a nine percent grade. It is oil-fired, and at 162 tons it's the largest one still in existence. Before coming to Cass, it was on display at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. I believe there were once two Shays at Cass, built or modified in their shops, that topped 200 tons. I can't imagine what beasts those must have been.
A new boiler for Heisler 6, a 100-ton geared locomotive that was then being rebuilt at Cass. It is now in regular service. Heislers differ from Shays in that they have two cylinders in a V configuration sticking up one on each side of the boiler, with a drive shaft that ran beneath the center of the locomotive. Whereas Shays are usually limited to speeds up to about 15 miles per hour, a Heisler can run somewhat faster.
Shay Number 2 ready to take a train to the summit of Bald Knob. The fireman is standing in the cab door, fueling himself with a sandwich. If I remember the numbers correctly, these locomotives consume about 4 1/2 tons of coal on the round trip, and most of it goes in the firebox in about two hours, on the way up. It's all done with a shovel, and the work doesn't let up. The firemen I saw on the coal-burners were wiry-looking guys; I imagine you'd have to be pretty tough to maintain the pace.
A conventional locomotive has a cylinder mounted horizontally at the front on each side, driving the wheels directly through rods. A Shay has a three-cylinder engine mounted vertically on the right side of the boiler, driving the wheels via a drive shaft and gears on the axles.
The drive wheels are mounted on paired axles in articulated trucks, like the trucks under a boxcar, to let the locomotive maintain adhesion (traction) on uneven, quickly laid temporary track. Square sliding couplings and universal joints in the drive shaft allow the trucks to pivot, enabling the locomotive to negotiate tighter curves than would be possible with rod-driven engines. The combination of articulation and low gear ratios makes geared locomotives able to move very heavy loads on steep grades, albeit slowly.
The funnel-shaped smokestack and screen keep burning embers from escaping and starting fires.
Whittaker Station is a rest stop en route to Bald Knob, with restrooms, concessions, equipment displays and a recreated logging camp.
A Lidgerwood Skidder was used to drag logs to the railroad loading site. The massive steam-powered hoisting machine was placed next to the rail line on a specially-laid siding and set up with a tall mast. Cables were strung from the mast to a sheave block anchored to a large tree at the logging site, and logs could be carried in the fashion of an aerial tram for distances up to 3,000 feet.
After logs were brought to the rail location by the skidder, a rail-mounted crane loaded them onto flatcars for transport down the mountain to the mill.
A spring-fed stream flowing down the mountain keeps the tanks beside the track full to overflowing, and the fireman uses a steam jet fed by the locomotive's boiler to transfer water from the tanks to the locomotive's tender.
Bald Knob, elevation 4,842 feet. Even on a hazy day, the view is impressive. It's chilly up there, even in summer; the climate and vegetation are similar to parts of Canada.
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