Western Maryland Scenic Railroad
The Western Maryland Scenic Railroad takes passengers sixteen miles on a ride up through the mountains out of Cumberland MD, and it truly is scenic. The train runs as far as Frostburg where you can have lunch while the steam locomotive is turned on the turntable for the trip back down. The railroad also operates old diesel locomotives as well as steam engines too.
The short Western Maryland Scenic Railroad has given me many chances to take pictures in all the seasons. As seen below, the most dramatic ones were done in winter cold and snow. No surprise there, that’s when the smoke and steam are the most plentiful, rising high into the air for the most effect.
This little heritage railroad and tourist line was once part of a much larger situation, the Western Maryland Railway. It reached from tidewater at Baltimore to the West Virginia coal mines and up into western Pennsylvania. Much of it was through some very scenic mountain landscape and some tough mountain railroading too. Today, you can still enjoy a piece of that on a short two-hour ride out and back from Cumberland MD.
The railroad has a unique feature for biking enthusiasts too as part of the 150-mile Great Allegheny Passage bike trail. The old Western Maryland Railway mainline was originally double tracked. Today, only one remains and the other is now for bicycles, which makes this a rails-with-trails. If you arrange with the railroad first, you can put your bike on the train for a ride to the top and coast back down! I’ve done this and it’s a blast.
It’s a great scenic ride either way on this heritage railroad, especially in the Fall. All these railroad pictures are available on laminated high gloss, canvas, and matted paper, printed and made by hand by myself, the artist. ~Andy