Cass Scenic Railroad (snow excursion) (May 10 1997)

You simply must check out this private excursion on the Cass Scenic RR under harsh winter-like blizzard conditions! Problem is, this was NOT a winter excursion, but rather a SPRING excursion in MAY-believe it or not!! Actually we experience THREE seasons on this day! We depart in the fall, arrive at Bald Knob in winter, and arrive back at Cass in the spring! All within 8 hours! The temperature at Cass upon departure was about 35 degrees. At Bald Knob it was about 20, but upon our return to Cass it was almost 60! After departing Bald Knob (the line's highest point) we go on to Spruce, the site of a onetime mill town, now well past the ghost town stage. Interesting stereo effects here as the locomotive whistles echo off the mountains! Then back to Cass where there was still a bit of rain but now considerably warmer! Most of us expected a balmy spring day and didn't come prepared for a blizzard! Where I'm from we don't git no snow in May! (FYI-On our private Cass excursions we have two trains-a re-created logging train and a photographers' [photo] train that the logging train closely follows. Most of us stand on the open car at the back of the photo train and photograph the logging train as it follows us. That way we get the ultimate historical experience-the logging train as it appeared in the logging days when West Virginia Pulp and Paper [now Westvaco and relocated in Luke MD] and later Mower Lumber Company [now defunct] operated it. Mower ceased operation in 1960. Then the state took over the line to convert to scenic operations and the rest is, well, history!) P.S. The next day the sun came out, warmed the day up to 75, and all the snow melted, though in the morning we still had "sno-caps" (snow capped mountains, that is). Mastered in 720p hi-def for best quality. For best results I highly recommend downloading this video and playing through a surround sound system!

In the time since this was uploaded in 2010 there have been some YT enhancements; one of which is the automatic dividing of the video into chapters, which they were nice enough to do for me here. Wasn't doing it myself yet. Thanx, YT! I'll excuse the occasional misspelling.