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ABOVE: Shay No. 5 pulls a log train through the curve at Gum Field between Cass and the picnic area at Whittaker on the mountain. ROBERT KAPLAN PHOTO RIGHT: Western Mary- land “Big Six” pulls into Whittaker, destination of the railroad’s short trips. The Mountain State Railroad & Logging Historical Associa- tion has a display set up at the site. GERALD M. FUTEJ PHOTO


& Paper Co. was that customer, in part owned by Joseph Kerr Cass. Eventual- ly the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Co. and the West Virginia Pulp & Pa- per Co. merged.


Cass became a boomtown with the requisite company store anchoring a small group of company houses, along with a school, jail, and other facilities to support a small town. The population would eventually hit 2,000 people, al- though at any given time a large num- ber of them would be living in the camps in the mountains above town. The railroad had a formidable pres- ence, with a shop complex spread out along Leatherbark Creek just across the C&O tracks from the mill. From the outset, the railroad exclusively used Shay locomotives built by Lima. By 1942 the spruce on the mountain had been depleted and West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co. pulled out of Cass. Second-growth hardwood trees had filled in on the mountain, however, and this drew the attention of F. Edwin Mower, who established the Mower Lumber Company. Still, the facilties at Cass were already from a bygone era and the mill and railroad shut down on July 1, 1960, following Mower’s death. Scrapping commenced in fairly short


44 JUNE 2013 • RAILFAN.COM


order, with anything made of wood burned to retrieve the metal parts for scrap. Midwest Raleigh, a scrap dealer, purchased the railroad and began lift- ing the tracks. The end had come.


A Mountain Miracle


Russell Baum, a railfan from Penn- sylvania, made several trips to Cass, both in the waning Mower days and as scrapping began. Teaming up with lo- cal businessmen, he attempted to con- vince the West Virginia state legisla- ture to purchase the railroad from Cass to Bald Knob. A special train with Shay No. 4 (lettered for the Cass, Greenbrier, Cheat & Bald Knob Scenic Railroad) was operated in 1962, and on June 15,


1963, the Cass Scenic Railroad was es- tablished under the auspices of the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources.


The town of Cass was purchased by a Florida developer in 1966, but his plans never materialized. The town, sawmill and surrounding land was purchased by the state in 1974. The state has


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