KevinM Wrote:
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> Here is what the Climax looked like last May:
>
> [url=http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=
> 534107&nseq=106]Moore-Keppel Climax #6[/url]
>
> Having gone there year after year, I was pretty
> surprised to finally see it looking more like a
> locomotive than a stock of spare parts. I was
> really looking forward to seeing someone press the
> project to the finish line.
>
> I was also surprised to hear that Cass was a
> money-loser. Every time I had ever been
> there....which is quite a few times....the trains
> always seemed crowded. The place was deserted in
> the early morning, but in the hour before
> train-time, the parking lot seemed to fill up
> quickly. Railfan weekend was also generally
> well-attended. Like many other tourist
> railroads, Cass is the kind of place that needs to
> chase bus tour operators to help promote the
> place. It is probably a stretch to just hope
> that vacationers in individual automobiles will
> journey that far out of the way for a train ride.
> The trip back and forth over Cheat Mountain from
> the Elkins area is not exactly an easy, pleasant
> drive.
>
I have been to Cass just once in my life; in 1986 we went through there on vacation,
and my wife was just not ready for yet another train ride (we had already ridden EBT,
and the way things have worked out, I guess that was the correct choice) -
it turned out that she was in the fourth week of pregnancy with our first child.
I don't think people from farther west realize how isolated places like EBT
and Cass are (and how expensive it can be to operate there),
and how much competition they face from other "rides" which
look similar to the naive tourist.
When we moved back to Indiana, I put Cass back on the list of places
we could go if we had just a week of vacation (or if we are going to some place
like DC), but I'm not sure how that is going to work out in the short run.
