Cass WV Cass Scenic Railroad Appalachian Fall Foliage

I am very confused by several vague webpages, on making reservations (that are probably long ago sold out)

When are these great fall events held ?

I also wanted to visit the Mt Washington COG Rwy, but that area is prone to the worst weather, cloudy, rain, cold, and fog, where the train is only allowed to go up to the halfway point ... and if you do get to the summit the fog is so dense that it is totally blocking all views

You wouldn't want to climb up to the Mt. Washington summit this time of year anyway because it's already snowed most likely. The latest you'd want to go is early to mid-September. I did that with some friends back in the early 1980s before Guilford destroyed the Mountain Division and the Berlin, NH mainline, which is gone completely now. We did some railfanning in the notch earlier in the day and also hiked Mt. Chocoura down near Whittier, NH. That was a 7-1/2 mile hike if I remember. Wow to be young and energetic like that now!

My buddy Martin drove his 1975 Chevy Chevelle up to the top on the very twisty and scary road. Even at that time of year, I remember seeing some snow in some places. When we got there, the steam trains were still operating and you could smell the coal. They were beautiful locomotives which are all stored now and replaced by a bio-diesel instead. It was also quite cold too and required a winter coat. The trip down was not fun at all and all you could smell is burning brakes because people clamp their foot to the metal rather than put the cars in low gear.

I would only want to ride the COG RR ... Driving a car up and down would be ridiculous, and redundant ... as the train will take you up to the summit

As for Cass I would want to see the 3 shay loco race, which I believe is in May ... As for the Fall Foliage, I suppose the area is all booked up ?

cascaderailroad said:

I would only want to ride the COG RR ... Driving a car up and down would be ridiculous, and redundant ... as the train will take you up to the summit

As for Cass I would want to see the 3 shay loco race, which I believe is in May ... As for the Fall Foliage, I suppose the area is all booked up ?

Click to expand...

I would rather have taken the train up, but I had no choice. The idea of climbing Mt. Washington came at the last minute because we were up in the Notch.

The drive got us to the summit too and we visited the museum and weather station where they had various displays setup on the mountain, hotel, and weather station, along with history about the cog railroad.

Seeing racing shays at 3 mph sounds interesting. The foliage may not be booked up yet. They still have a bit more time than we have up in New England where the leaves have already started turning (Yikes!).