By Sam Shawver, Times-News Staff Writer
Saturday, March 5, 2005 9:17 AM EST



CUMBERLAND - State transportation officials apparently left a Feb. 17 meeting in Allegany County believing they had been assured that the final Western Maryland Scenic Railroad excursion from Cumberland to Frostburg would run on Dec. 15, leaving the abandoned rails to be developed by the Allegheny Highlands Trail Alliance.

"When we left the meeting, my understanding was that those were steps to be taken, not recommendations," said Barbara Buehl, executive director of the Allegany County Chamber of Commerce.

Buehl was among 14 members of a committee made up of state and local representatives who met in Cumberland last month to discuss issues facing the railroad and development of the highlands trail project.

Minutes from the closed meeting, obtained from the Maryland Department of Transportation on Friday, contain eight "next steps" that county and scenic railroad officals were to take to ensure the Frostburg run would stop by the end of 2005, making room for the trail.

Among those next steps were:
"1) The train will run one more season from Cumberland to Frostburg which will end on December 15, 2005. Tracks and ballast will be replaced by contractor for (a 3.7-mile section between Zihlman and Woodcock Hollow), and trail and train will coexist in 2005. Trail will stop before (the Brush Tunnel) for 2005.

"2) Vance Ishler (county administrator) will prepare a letter to (state transportation) secretary (Robert) Flanagan stating the train will not run from Cumberland to Frostburg after 2005.

"3) Jim Stafford (president of the scenic railroad board) will write a letter to the county releasing the property to the trail."

Other steps included trail construction along the current rail alignment to begin after the 2005 train season; acquisition of a trail hiker/biker access right-of-way from CSX Transportation; asking CSX for possible train access to the Grafton rail branch to the county fairgrounds; and consideration of smaller scenic railroad train runs to replace the Frostburg route.

The final step was to "liquidate if all above options fail. Then a permanent home must be found for the train. Some liquidation of cars should occur in any case to cut back on inventory of vehicles, allowing exodus from Ridgeley (train yard that belongs to CSX).

Asked if he, too, understood that the state expected the eight steps to be followed, Stafford said Flanagan's representative at the meeting, Sylvia Ramsey, wanted him to agree to the plan.

"They asked me to make a commitment, but I told them I was only one vote, and I had to take this information back to the railroad board," said Stafford.

"But then public sentiment came out strong in support of keeping the trail and the railroad," he said. "If the public opinion had not been so strong, the board would probably have taken the steps written by the state.

"It's a tough decision, but the public sees a need for both the trail and train to be there," said Stafford.

A crowd of citizens showed up at Thursday's work session between the county commissioners and scenic railroad board, expressing support for continuing the Cumberland to Frostburg runs after 2005. A committee is being formed to consider the issue and come up with a five-year plan for operating the railroad.

>A crowd of citizens showed up at Thursday's work session between the county commissioners and scenic railroad >board, expressing support for continuing the Cumberland to Frostburg runs after 2005. A committee is being
>formed to consider the issue and come up with a five-year plan for operating the railroad.

I heard Allegany County Commissioner Stakem's comment's about this meeting in a radio interview aired Friday morning on local station WCBC. In reference to the "committee" being formed, he suggested that the Maryland Department of Transportation, the City of Frostburg, the City of Cumberland, the Scenic Railway, and the Tourism Board be represented on the "committee". Just to show you how out of touch he is, he is also in favor of having a representative from the Allegany Highlands Trail Commission on the same committee that has given itself 90 days to come up with a five year plan to "save" the rails to Frostburg. The only good news I have heard about the "committee" is that noted railroad artist Charles Amos will represent the interests of railfans and the community-at-large.

Noteably absent from inclusion on the "committee" is anyone from the business community who knows something about running a business or anyone who could be considered knowledgeable about running railroads.

Being a resident of Allegany County and the City of Cumberland, I have a few observations and recommendations. As to the membership of the "committee";
1. The State of Maryland washed their hands of the Western Maryland
Scenic Railway several years ago and turned it over to the County. In
view of this, plus the fact that they broke their commitment to my
community when they pulled the plug on the subsidy, they no longer
have a dog in this fight and should stay home in Annapolis. The State
has already conceded it's sovereignty to the Allegany Highlands Trail
Commission, and I, for one, do not want these Benedict Arnold's
representing me or my interests.
2. The Allegany Highlands Trail Commission is hardly in a position to do
what is best for the Scenic Railway or Allegany County. They want the
railroad to disappear at the end of 2005. Having one of their people on
the "committee" is akin to giving a fox a penthouse apartment in the
chicken coop. They are neither qualified or trustworthy enough to be in
a position of influence over our railroad.
3. If business community and railroad fraternity experts were included, it
would not take 90 days to come up with a five year plan that works.
4. Jim Stafford should be fired from the WMSR Board of Directors for his
complicity in the scheme to turn our railroad over to the AHTC. How
can somebody with his "track record" be trusted to do what's best for
WMSR?

If our commissioners do not get some backbone and stand up to the Trail Commission, there will be an election in the future when we can remind them of their failure to represent the best interests of Allegany County and the Scenic Railway. It is our history and heritage at stake here...not the success of a recreational enterprise conceived and propagated by people who do not live in our community.

No more closed door meetings. Politicians are more credible when their
comments are heard by their constituents in the presence their
collaborators. Seems like there were a few surprised bureaucrats in
attendance Thursday.

Thanks a bunch, Cas Taylor!!!

Can you clarify that one for me? Caspar Taylor was voted out of office in 2002 and I thought he no longer had any official post in connection with any of this. What does he have to do with the current situation?

For those of you who might need a scorecard to follow the ins and outs of Md politics, Caspar Taylor was the Dem. state representative from Allegany County who was Speaker of the MD House, a powerful post. He was the RR's political patron and the force behind a lot of other tourism development subsidy in Western Maryland. He was defeated in his reelection contest by a Republican in 2002.

The ill that befalls the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad is not something new to us here in western Maryland. While it may be true that a lot of pork stuck to our pristine hillsides, the roots of today's issue go back years.

Cas Taylor is responsible for taking private property and making it public property. The station in Cumberland, the main line tracks to switch nine, and the C&P right-of-way to the station in Frostburg, and a hand-me-down C&O GP9 (aka WM 5940) were donated by CSX Corporsation to the City of Cumberland.

The City suffered from the same weakness then that it does today...nobody at the city, county, or board of tourism knows much about running a railroad. Cas, a member of the first Board of Directors of WMSR, is the one who got politicians at the State level involved. After all, the MdDOT runs MARC, and that's trains, so surely they'll know how to run the little ole Western Maryland Scenic Railway.

Did you ever wonder where all those big numbers like 20-25 million over 5 years came from? MdDOT. They once were quoted in the Times-News as saying that it would take 31 million to rehab all the track in Ridgeley plus the track to the wye in Maryland Junction (Carpendale) used to turn 734. Those are Northeast Corridor like numbers.

So, Cas orchestrated the sale of the right-of-way to the State of Maryland Department of Transportation for 1.5 million. The State, in turn, was to contract the Western Maryland Scenic Railway to maintain the tracks. This is where it really starts to stink.

Then the AHTC starts promising the State, who now owns the tracks, hundreds of thousands of visitors in downtown Cumberland. It is also here that Brush Tunnel becomes a major sticking point. Also at issue is the potential liability of having pedestrians in close proximity to moving trains. This was the genesis of the stupid idea three years ago to install a chain link fence all the way from Frostburg to downtown Cumberland to "protect" innocent trail users from the bad trains. It also created the illusion that the AHTC wanted to coexist with the WMSR. Not long after this time frame, MdDOT washed their hands of the Scenic and turned it over to the County.

It's funny, everywhere else that I know of, pedestrians on an active railroad right-of-way is defined as trespassing. In Allegany County, it's recreation.

Now...fast forward to the behind-closed-door meeting of Feb 17th. The tracks are gone and the politicos are debating the economic factors of the train versus the trail. (you don't have to take my word for this. The newspaper articles published make this obvious) The issue has now become "if we put the tracks AND the trail back down it will cost 7 million $$$. If we put only the trail down, the cost will be 2 million $$$. Do we really want to spend 5 million $$$ to put the tracks back down for only one season"?

The questions I want answered are,

"who promised the AHTC that the tracks were coming up at all"?

"where did the AHTC get the notion that they control the right-of-way"?

I suggest to you that our friend Casper made those deals, behind closed doors, years ago.

And last but not least, has anybody seen or heard anything in the major print and broadcast media where State legislators are demanding that Rocky Gap Resort (another Cas Taylor project) turn a profit or risk being torn down for a hiking trail? Quite the contrary!!! The latest move by the State was to pass a bill that, if signed into law by Governor Ehrlich, would put 1,000 slot machines at Rocky Gap.

If that happens, I am going to start lobbying my politicians to get some of that $$$ to subsidize the Western Maryland Scenic Railway.

I'm serious folks. Not on every train of course, but evening gambling specials might well attract people from the slots of Charlestown, WV or those soon to be over the border in neighboring PA.

I have no desire to destroy the family friendly image of the WMSR. But if slot machine revenue could help defray the cost of operating the railroad, why not?

Hey, I GOTTA give Brother Gillespie credit for thinking outside the box.

The only thing I see perhaps fraught with peril from this innovation would be a gang of train robbers waiting up at Woodcock Hollow Road or Helmstetter's..........

Seriously, however, I wouldn't have a problem with a local jurisdiction using revenues from gambling taxes to apply towards preservation of history. In this case, however, we Marylanders are having it beaten into our heads that the "cash cow" from allowing what limited slot machines will be permitted will supposedly be applied towards advancing education in the state. (There is no idea, however good or bad, that can't be mucked up hopelessly with government interference.)

Actually this might be historically correct. I seem to recall an "old timer" telling a story of a "casino train" on the WM way back in the 1920s or 1930s. The "casino" was staged in a baggage car. When local authorities in one of the towns got word of the operation, someone tipped off the crew and the baggage car was "cut-out" on a siding before the train reached the offended jurisdiction. I have no way of knowing if this story was fact or just an old-timer's imagination. -- Ray

Actually, I don't know if slot machines have a Tilt! capacity, but I can't see keeping a train or car with slot machines, especially hauled by a coal burner, clean enough to run an efficient, and money-making ganmbling train. Many sharp slot gamblers go to the casinos that have a good payout ratio to customers.
I was going to make a comment like what person takes a "scenic" trip in order to gamble in a windowless, smoke filled room, but we've seen people do some nonsensical things before.

Every thing Tim said PLUS:

Anybody who's every been to a casino or racetrack or kino (sp?) parlor knows that there is an occasional or more than occasional outburst, fight or other "unpleasantness".. you don't need passengers gambling (and lets not forget, gambling is usually served with a lot of alcohol-so as to change your perception of the odds.. ). Safety first demands that you not create potentially dangerous conditions on board attracting riders who will become desperate, delusional, drunk or any combination of the three .

Years ago I actually investigated this for a project.

According to a friend of mine that is a technical designer for Bally, in Las Vegas, having 'moving' machines is not the problem, believe it or not. They already have them on platforms, etc. They are closer to a computer than a mechanical device, and can be 'hardned' for vibration.

The actual problem is power supply. The same designer said that power and voltage stabilization was a real headache. In fact, he recommended playing all machines in Vegas during a thunderstorm, when they happen, because a random power glitch frequently results in a payout. It's still a problem in 'mom & pop' stores with slots and no power backup/protection.

So, Steve Z, et al, if you can figure out how to guarantee power supply with an on-board generator/battery/surge protection system, this isn't as nuts as you think.

Sooner or later somebody will expiriment with this. We've had enough inquiries.

I actually gambled in a casino car - on the Ghan in Australia. They took one of their Budd licensed cars and put in slot machines, video poker, video blackjack, etc. This was in the 1990's before the railroad was extended from Alice Spring to Darwin.

Randy,

We already do that on my present job, operations and maintenance of the T2000 for the FRA. It has a rather large UPS system to back up the high powered computers that operate the Automated Track Inspection Program lasers.

Steve Zuiderveen

Geez Randy, don't you know to NEVER do anything about passenger cars without talking it out with Steve Z first? What he doesn't know.......doesn't exist.

Why not use old mechanical machines rather than electronic? Reckon there must be bunches of them rusting away in a Vegas warehouse somewhere.

dave

Do these track and operation numbers seem high to anybody else? I recognize that the steamer eats money for breakfast, lunch, and diner, but...

Does anyone know how these ridership numbers compare from when they ran the open window commuter cars and the FPA4 / RSD, etc.? I'm sure the costs were lower, but were the percentages of costs and revenues similar? I was really surprised to see how low the ridership figures are for this operation from previous posts. Obviously, it needs to be much higher to balance the costs involved. I agree it is a first class operation, but perhaps the market would be better served with a "tourist" class operation.

Does anyone know the short history on who and how the thing started in the first place, private investors or ?

Another issue that hasn't been mentioned is that I always understood that the row was "sold" to the public agencies to get funds to buy the former NS cars and I presumed fund the restoration of the steam engine. Was this loss of control the beginning of the end? If so, it is a lesson to be learned by others.

I recognize the "tourist train" element means that the crews need to be paid, etc , but sure seems like many groups out there can operate on much less. I've seen the track and it is maintained very well, but even the lower $125,000 per year budget seems reasonable. Obviously volunteers aren't a possibility in the scheme of things, but seems like costs could be trimmed down.

It makes you wonder if this had been set up more as a railroad museum / cultural artifact (Western Maryland corridor) preservation project originally, would it have more teeth in a historic preservation (section 106 protection) plan. This would imply that Brush tunnel and other elements would be on or eligible for the national register.

James

It has never been a private enterprise. The Right of Way passed from CSX into public ownership in 1989. The Scenic Railroad was started by a state-county-local government partnership to jump-start a tourism industry in Cumberland.

The Scenic Railroad operating authority has gone through a number of resuffles, but basically it has always been a non-profit corporation owned and controlled entirely by a coalition of governments (Cumberland, Frostberg, Allegany County). The operating authority has over the years contracted with various private-sector operators to provide equipment and staff, or in more recent years, has directly owned the equiptment and employed the staff itself. I may have some of the details slightly wrong, but that's the overall picture.

To the best of my knowledge there has been no private sector investment in the line, just contracts with private sector operators on a fee-for-service basis.




The only private sector owner was CSX. From there it went to government ownership. From that time on it has bounced among public owners of record but never been in private hands. My memory is too faulty to dig this out, but as best I recall the City of Cumberland was the original owner, and they sold it to the State of Maryland in exchange for funds for the NS cars, etc. So between your memory and mine I think we've pieced it together--the ROW did change hands to fund improvements, but it was a deal between governments.

Did that change signal the end? Well, that's a tough question. The conclusion I would draw is that WMSRR has from the beginning been a public and essentially political entity. This has shaped everything about the operation from its cost structure, to its operating pattern (a much longer run than most private tourist lines, maintained becuase political and tax support from Frostburg was essential), to its management history (turbulent).

It's hard to say what a private-sector WMSRR would have been like, though it would certainly have been very different--completely different operating profile, marketing strategy, and cost structure I expect. But more o the point, I think it would have taken a very talented operator to make it viable as a private-sector operation. I know I would have thought long, hard, and skeptically before making a private investment there. Public-private partnership that limited my risk, maybe, but pure private---hoo, tough one. It's one serious mountain railroad.