Encountered this nice little "Rest Stop" along the Great Allegheny Passage beside the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad at the Woodcock Hollow Road crossing outside Mt. Savage, MD.

While waiting to the train to pass, we chatted with a few trail users that stopped to use the "outhouse". Only one lady offered a negative comment about the railroad being next to the trail.... Her only offering was a comment about the "smelly old train would be coming soon"...... guess she never used the port-a-potty at this location.

In a 35 min window we talked with approx. 6 people and only one of them had any thing negative to say.

With all the troubles in New York state concerning rails & trails, it's nice to see that we got past that point and now the WMSRR and GAP can exist side by side.

T. Wilson

Glad to see and hear this, but be aware that at least some trail people apparently never sleep. When I had the chance to stop by the WMSR just before the rail festival this past summer and mentioned the trail controversy, one of the employees at the enginehouse said there were trail people who still wanted to get rid of the railroad.

Looks like we may have to stay aware. . .

Thanks for the pics!

As a fequent cyclist (couple thousand miles a year, mostly on rail trails) I'd welcome the chance to sit here and hope for a wiff of that "smelly old train."

There is something captivating about the aroma of coal smoke.

Tell the fussy lady from NY to go ride somewhere else if she doesn't like the train.

You and I might like the smell of coal smoke in the morning as much as Robert Duvall liked the smell of Napalm in Apocalypse Now, but you're going to find more and more "daisy pickers" who don't get or appreciate the historic accuracy. I keep saying that tourist railroading is going to have to move towards using bio-fuel to keep the NIMBY's off their backs, and I really think that time has arrived. There would certainly be much less opposition to a tourist train next to a trail if when the train passed all the hikers smelled was cooking french fries from the waste vegetable oil the loco was burning.

That didn't work for the Grand Canyon Railway, I might point out.

And besides, with the way things are very rapidly going with both federal and New York State regulators, "French fry oil" may well be the next "prohibited" fuel/aroma. Too many trans-fats, you know.

Not quite sure what you mean. I'm sure that you can always find anybody to complain about anything, but at least publicly and on the web, the 'green machine' mentality of the 4960 churns on seemingly unscathed through the 2013 season. I can't find any recent attacks myself.

Having ridden behind it, I was convinced that it's still a viable method for producing enough steam to lift the pops, yes, it smells like French fries, and the big bonus is no big black clouds of oil smoke, which is a definite PR plus in certain areas. I'll admit I was very skeptical until I saw it run myself.

The one thing on 4960 you can't 'fix' is water use, and that seems to be as much of a bedevilment on the south rim as using fuel oil. But, in a super-green company like Xanterra, the fact they 'found a way' to still run it at all is really remarkable.

I was absolutely astounded the PR reaction that accompanied the biodiesel-fueled Savannah Streetcar; yes, it's incredibly fuel-efficient at its heart, but the positive press it got from that one little factor.... it was like we'd perfected cold fusion. Pay no attention to the trolley pole and the concept of using overhead wire....

I know that in the Grand (pardon the pun) scheme of things, the use of oil-versus-coal and using "green" fuel had only a small part to play in the line's decision to eliminate/dramatically scale back steam use and switch to diesel-electrics. Nothing relating to Grand Canyon environmentalism is ever simple.

I'm just pointing out that waste veggie oil is no longer the "magic bullet" for addressing environmental/NIMBY concerns that Brother Woodring suggests it could be, especially since it's gone from "waste" to "liquid gold" worthy of million-dollar theft schemes: http://citypaper.com/news/hot-grease-1.1580418

We're so far off-topic it isn't funny. I never said bio-fuel would be cheaper than coal, although I've heard tales of just how expensive and hard to get high-quality, low-sulfur coal has become from some live steamers who only need small quantities on an annual basis. I still say that anyone or group that is going to put the time and money into a major restoration of a steam locomotive should seriously consider a bio-fuel conversion. Doing so removes one more objection you will get from those who might oppose any operation of your locomotive, especially an operation that will occur on a regular basis in the same area. Groups like Ft. Wayne, who roam through a large area with their locomotive, will have less of a problem, since their operation is only an occasional event wherever it occurs.

Just wondering who owns the right of way? Is it the railroad, the city, the state, or somebody else? Seems like the owner would have the most say in what does and doesn't happen on their land.

I'm not positive, but I think it might be the county. It's interesting that the railroad did have state support for track maintenance for a while, though.

While here, I just came across a couple of links that might be worthy of study. I'll be placing them with the Catskill and Adirondack threads later, but they are here now, too.

http://www.adventurecycling.org/resourc ... ncreasing/

http://www.railstotrails.org/resources/ ... x.html#/1/