March 31, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

DURBIN & GREENBRIER VALLEY RAILROAD UNVEILS PLAN TO CONNECT CASS SCENIC RAILROAD WITH SNOWSHOE RESORT

CASS, W.Va.—The Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad has announced a change of plans from its original intentions for the Cass Scenic Railroad, a long running tourist line for which it recently assumed operations.

Although original plans called for the railroad to become part of a 90-mile loop of track originating in Elkins, a feasibility study was conducted during 2014, and it was decided that it would be too costly and environmentally impossible to reconstruct the line at this time. However, monies that had been invested in the company for the project will not go to waste, said Walter Martin, D&GV comptroller and head of the Undercover Operations Department.

“Instead of utilizing the funds for reconstructing the Durbin line or wasting it on frivolous locomotive and equipment repairs, we will focus our sights on connecting the line with Snowshoe Mountain Resort,” Martin said. “We just feel it would be a better investment all around. We have already cut our first check in the amount of $5 Million as a deposit on the rights to build a railroad on Snowshoe land. The only way it won’t happen is if there is an online protest.”

Historically, the lands currently owned by Snowshoe Resort were originally owned by the Mower Lumber Company of Cass, and were logged in the 1940s and early 1950s. As a result of the logging operations, there were several railroad spur lines spider webbed across the property.

Thomas Rolfe, the estranged stepson of the line’s owner and the company’s assistant chief sanitation engineer, has been responsible for bringing the new plan together. “I was on a work mandated expedition in the highlands over the winter, and while carrying out my duties I decided to take a metal detector with me, and I discovered there were still tracks down all across the mountain, but covered over by dirt and silt. I had one of my sled dogs carry a message back to town requesting more rock salt and for penicillin for a group of migrant nuns who had taken ill on the mountain, and I told them about the discovery. They were astonished to say the least,” Rolfe said. “It will probably be up and running by Winter 2015-16,” he added, “all thanks to my own discovery.” Rolfe said his father even sent him a note thanking him, the first communication between the two in years. “It was touching to receive it to say the least. I cried for hours. He even said I might buy me a new shovel to work with now! It has always been a dream of mine to own my own company. I would call it ‘Pocahontas and Son’. Maybe this breakthrough could make that happen.”

The news was an unexpected surprise at Snowshoe, much to the excitement to employees of the Snowshoe Scenic Railway, a holding company that owned the dormant railroad right-of-way on the Snowshoe property for years. The re-opening of the trackage was first proposed by the WVDNR in the 1960s while much of the present day Snowshoe land was still owned by Mower Lumber Company. The Snowshoe Scenic Railway was created in 1982, and has been silently waiting until the day to use the hidden trackage was finally to happen. Clyde Hillsdale, CEO of the company, expressed his overjoy in his own poetic way. “Its about m****r f*****g time these b*****ds saw the g*****n light and decided to build the tracks up here instead of in that d**n valley. The floods turned that line to s**t in the 1980s, and f*****g Mother Nature herself wouldn’t touch it,” he stated. After his initial expletive excitement of the announcement, Clyde continued. “We have had this right-of-way under wraps for years, hoping that someday some @$$***e would come up here and use it for what it was meant to be. Now that’s going to happen, and I am f*****g elated. I tell you it feels like a d**n April Fools joke to me, but so has all of the events of the past year.” **DNR**

You forgot the proposed use of rebuilt Garratt locomotives, rather than Shays, to work the new service. I thought I had heard something about regauged South African locomotives available cheap, although that might just be the lack of medication due to my problems with ACA coverage recently. There is also a prospective lease of Australian locomotive 6029, which I understand traditionally operated over track of comparable quality to that existing at Snowshoe Scenic today.

Just get the Climax working! Rumor has it they'll follow two lines scratched in the dirt. I've actually seen that happen a time or two come to think of it...