ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 25, 1996 TAG: 9608230111
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CASS, W.VA.
The Cass Scenic Railroad is slowly chugging back uphill after floods this year damaged property and derailed excursions.
Flooding from the Greenbrier River in January destroyed the parking lot. In May, two days after a contractor finished a $500,000 replacement, the river flooded again and wiped out the work. The National Guard rebuilt it again, and last month more flooding washed out a section of the parking lot.
Flooding also undercut parts of the 11-mile rail track and a bridge.
``I don't know what it is with this rain, but if it stops anytime soon, we'd all be grateful,'' said Stan Beafore, superintendent of Cass Scenic Railroad State Park.
The steam train normally carries 75,000 tourists a year on two routes, one 11 miles and one 4 miles, on the state's second-highest peak, Bald Knob. That number has dwindled this year due to the setbacks.
The railroad has dropped its top-of-the-mountain runs until $1 million in repairs are finished. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is picking up 75 percent of the bill.
Repairs are not expected to be completed until October, making fall foliage runs to the top of 4,800-foot Bald Knob impossible this year, Beafore said.
``That's going to hurt us some, but we're still going to be extremely busy just handling trips to Whittaker,'' he said.
To compensate for the loss of Bald Knob excursions, the railroad has added a fourth daily trip on its Cass-to-Whittaker Station run. Beafore said other expansion possibilities are being explored for next year.
Beafore credits park employees with preventing the floods from completely washing out this year's tourist season.
An army of maintenance workers, locomotive engineers and machine shop personnel in January made repairs to open the Cass-Whittaker run. They worked four straight days to establish a stabilizing crib out of 200 rail ties and install a huge new culvert.
``The work got done just hours before we opened the season,'' Beafore said.
- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB