A MILESTONE FOR CASS SCENIC
Fifty Years Up on the Mountain
BY STEVE BARRY/PHOTOS AS NOTED
IN 1960 THE TOWN OF CASS,
W.VA., HAD hit rock bottom. The lumber industry that had kept the town going for six decades had shut down, silencing its sawmill and its
skidders, and the
mountain railroad that served them. But something unlikely happened — people kept coming to Cass to see the unique geared Shay steam locomotives as they shuffled about handling the materials from the dismantling of the line. By 1962 the town realized it could make some money carrying sightseers on a steam-powered ride up the moun-
tain. The culmination came 50 years ago, in 1963, when the Cass Scenic Railroad became West Virginia’s longest and narrowest state park at 13 miles long and 50 feet wide.
In the Beginning
During the late 1800s Sam Slaymak- er was lumbering the Greenbrier Val- ley, harvesting high-valued pine that he floated down river to the mills. When the Chesapeake & Ohio built its Greenbrier Branch along the river of the same name, Slaymaker followed
the tracks and discovered a huge stand of spruce atop Cheat Mountain. He es- tablished a construction camp in 1900 where the current town of Cass is locat- ed, and built the Greenbrier & Elk Riv- er Railroad to reach the timber. With a substantial investment need- ed to expand operations, Slaymaker looked for a partner and in 1902 he joined forces with the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company. With the cutting end of the business secure, Slaymaker then needed a customer for his pulpwood. The West Virginia Pulp
OPPOSITE: Cass Scenic Railroad specializes in recreating the scenes of hard working steam from years gone by. A log train works uphill in January 1975 on a charter for the Potomac Chapter NRHS. ROBERT KAPLAN PHOTO ABOVE: Shay No. 11 leads a photo work train at Old Spruce with the valley blanketed in fog during the 50th Anniversary Railfan Weekend on May 11, 2013. JEFF TERRY PHOTO
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