Qualla: Cass Scenic Railroad State Park

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris M Morris, CC BY 2.0. The train whistle that echoes through the Greenbrier Valley today is the same one that once summoned loggers to work at dawn. Cass Scenic Railroad State Park preserves not just a railroad but an entire company town - the houses, the company store, the machine shops - all built in 1901 by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company to strip the spruce and hemlock from the Allegheny Mountains. When the timber ran out and the mill fell silent in 1960, the town of Cass nearly vanished. Instead, it became something rarer than a museum: a place where the machinery still runs, the buildings still serve their purpose, and the steep-grade tracks still carry passengers to a summit where the loggers once worked waist-deep in snow.

Image: Chris M Morris | CC BY 2.0

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park: A Town Built for Timber

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, CC BY-SA 3.0. The West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company founded Cass in 1901 as a purpose-built company town, every structure designed to serve the lumber operation on Back Allegheny Mountain. The sawmill at Cass became the largest double-band sawmill in the world, processing hundreds of millio...

Image: Valerius Tygart | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park: The Ghost Town at the Summit

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark Levisay from Ruckersville, VA, USA, CC BY 2.0. The five-hour round trip to the abandoned site of Spruce is perhaps the most haunting journey on the railroad. Spruce was once the coldest and highest town east of the Rocky Mountains, a place where loggers and their families endured brutal winters at elevation to cut red spruce ...

Image: Mark Levisay from Ruckersville, VA, USA | CC BY 2.0

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park: Iron Horses That Refuse to Die

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Influencerrpc893, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cass owns eight Shay locomotives, one Heisler, and one Climax - three competing designs of geared steam locomotive, all invented to solve the same problem: how to move heavy loads up impossible grades. The Shay, designed by Ephraim Shay, uses vertical pistons and a geared drivesh...

Image: Influencerrpc893 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park: Saved by Stubbornness

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. When the Mower Lumber Company shut down operations in 1960, the railroad and all its equipment were sold to a holding company that began scrapping everything. The tracks were being torn up and the locomotives cut apart when Russell Baum, a Pennsylvania train enthusiast, led a gro...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park: Three Journeys Up the Mountain

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mobilus In Mobili, CC BY 2.0. Today, three excursions depart from the Cass depot. The two-hour round trip to Whittaker Station is the shortest, passing through forest to a recreated logging camp where visitors can see how the workers lived. The five-hour trip to the ghost town of Spruce follows the original l...

Image: Mobilus In Mobili | CC BY 2.0