Cass Depot, ca 1948. With the day's operations shut down several hours ago and the locomotive fires banked, a couple of Mower Lumber Co. night hostlers chat on the empty platform of the old depot on the C&O Durbin Branch at MP 80.7. Depicted behind the two men are Mower Shays 4 & 5, which were in operation right up until the end of lumbering operations in 1960. Shay #5 is the older of the two, and was built for this railroad in 1905, and has never left the property. The depot you see today was built in the 1970s, replacing a structure that existed from 1923, until it was destroyed by fire in 1975. The new depot retains the styling of the original C&O Depot, which stood until 1923, but is larger than the original, retaining the size of the more modern structure that it replaced in the 1970s.
For aficianados of geared steam engines, it's "almost heaven." Here are some scenes from the park's annual Railfan Weekends, as well as some private charters.
