On Saturday I drove through Keyser, WV. There is a brick station/maintenance building next to the tracks, and it still has a faded "Amtrak Rail Passenger Station" sign on it.

What train went through here? Seems to be one discontinued long ago...
 

The Shenendoah traveled via the ex-B&O from Washington to Cincinatti on an overnight schedule. When I rode it in (I think) 1980, it was a two-car Amfleet train, the rear of which featured two custom-built roomettes. I think this was the only time Amtrak ever put sleeping accommodations on an Amfleet.

The Hilltopper traveled on a daylight schedule from the tiny burgh of Tri-State, Kentucky to Washington on the former N&W via Roanoke, Virginia--a spectacularly beautiful run.

Both trains were famously pulled from a "barrel of West Virginia pork" (that is to say, existed for political reasons alone), and were discontinued around 1981. Personally, I didn't mind the smell of pork-rinds that permeated the trains. Neither, it seems, did the many locals who used them.
 

[This message has been edited by RRRICH (edited 09-29-2003).]
 

Keyser itself didn't have that much to see (though I did like the position-light signal mounted on the highway bridge). They must get a lot of railfans or those who travel by rail, because many of the local hotels listed "distance to the Cumberland Amtrak station" in their internet listings.
 

The Shenandoah's modest consist included just an Amcafe and two Amcoaches. Not too long after setting out from Washington, the train called at Harpers Ferry, which is one of the most scenic way stations anywhere if you ask me.

I spent most of the time in the vestibule of the trailing Amcoach, simply staring out the back door window. All I saw were vague shapes and the snaking tracks behind the train, but, being a railfan, the limited sights were mesmerizing nonetheless. Years before, I would have been sitting in one of those special dome cars which the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad outfitted with floodlights to help passengers enjoy the scenery. I wonder what the people who lived in the homes along the right of way thought of those things back then.

Most of The Shenandoah's stops after Harpers Ferry were flag stops, owing perhaps to these communities' small sizes and also perhaps to the train's late nocturnal passing, and to be sure, nobody seemed to be flagging the little train that night, if anyone ever did. We didn't stop anywhere it seemed, but we seemed to be making slow progress all the same. The train proceeded through the mountainous country at a very slow pace. There were many curves. At times the roadbed was quite bouncy. While on a map this line looked to be the most direct possible between the nation's capitol and the windy city, perhaps it was because of the roadbed's choppy condition that years later when Amtrak re-invented The Capitol Limited, the train itself didn't come this way. I think the new Cap heads down the other track at Harpers Ferry, north towards Pittsburgh.

I grew more and more fatigued, but I couldn't bring myself to sit down in an Amcoach and sleep. I was covering new ground, and I also was worried about how easily I'd be able to hitch a ride north when I got to Chillicothe.

Sometime during the night an icy rain began to fall. It was just a bit before daybreak when The Shenandoah came to a stop at Chillicothe. The place was obscured by a thick fog. All I recall of the station was the chilly dampness and the blinking lights on the rising crossing gates as The Shenandoah pulled away to the west, leaving me all alone in the mist. I stuck out my thumb, and, much to my amazement, within a just few minutes, I got a ride in a pick-up truck all the way to Ohio Wesleyan University.
 

Thx for the clarification about where the Cap's route and Shenandoah's former route splat. Thx also for complimenting my trip report.

Dave

[This message has been edited by dnsommer (edited 11-10-2003).]
 

Dave
 

MP