The Durbin Branch (Western Maryland): History, Map, Operations
Published: September 25, 2026
By: Adam Burns
The Durbin Branch was the Western Maryland’s way south from Elkins to the Chesapeake & Ohio. Forty-six point nine miles, two summits, two tunnels, and grades past 2 percent, it was built by the Coal & Iron Railway and opened to Durbin on July 27, 1903. Coal, lumber, and a mixed train were typical traffic on this line. The mixed train was the last passenger service the Western Maryland ran. The C&O line it met at Durbin along its Greenbrier Branch, and told in more detail in William McNeel’s Durbin Route.
Consolidation #752 at the depot in Durbin, West Virginia, with what appears to be the local from Elkins. Chesapeake & Ohio doodlebug #9055, and a combine, wait on the Greenbrier connection. No. 9055 will turn south along the Greenbrier River for Cass, Marlinton, and the main line at Ronceverte. Bill Price photo.
On this page: At a glance · Coal & Iron · Forty-seven miles · What the branch did all day · Consolidations, then a hammerhead · After the Greenbrier closed
At a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Railroad | Western Maryland, Durbin Subdivision. Built by the Coal & Iron Railway, a West Virginia Central subsidiary |
| Charter | December 14, 1899 |
| Opened | Bemis, late 1902. Durbin, July 27, 1903 |
| Length | 46.9 miles, Elkins to Durbin (William McNeel) |
| Profile | Grades past 2 percent. Tunnel No. 1 under Cheat Mountain, south of Canfield. Tunnel No. 2 under Shavers Mountain, at Glady |
| Connection | Chesapeake & Ohio Greenbrier Branch at Durbin. The C&O was already there, open to Durbin on May 26, 1902 |
| Traffic | Lumber, coal, tanbark, local freight, and interchange cars for the C&O. Through cars between Ronceverte and Elkins from January 1, 1924 |
| Last passenger | Mixed train, Elkins–Durbin, April 10, 1959. Three days a week at the end |
| Last freight | Trains last ran in November 1983. Service to Durbin was discontinued February 15, 1984 |
A railroad to meet the C&O
Henry G. Davis wanted a southern outlet for the West Virginia Central. The Chesapeake & Ohio was building north along the Greenbrier River from Ronceverte, and the two companies settled on Durbin as the meeting place. The C&O’s Greenbrier Branch was open to Durbin on May 26, 1902. Davis’s connection was a new company. The Coal & Iron Railway was chartered on December 14, 1899, as a West Virginia Central subsidiary, and it left Elkins headed east, then turned south near Bowden.
The country did not cooperate. Grades ran past 2 percent. Tunnel No. 1 went under Cheat Mountain south of Canfield. Tunnel No. 2 went under Shavers Mountain near Glady. Service reached Bemis in late 1902. The rails reached Durbin on July 27, 1903. McNeel, whose book is really the biography of the C&O line, gives the Western Maryland distance from the Elkins station as 46.9 miles. Gould’s Western Maryland inherited the Coal & Iron with the West Virginia Central in 1905, and the branch became the Durbin Subdivision of the Elkins Division.
Forty-seven miles, and a junction at the end
Western Maryland system map, 1940, with the Durbin Branch highlighted. The blue line is the Coal & Iron route from Elkins to the C&O at Durbin.
A train leaving Elkins climbed into the Cheat country, passed Cheat Junction, where the Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk came in, and then faced the two summits. That junction was the door to the logging railroad and, after 1927, to the Elk River coal branches. The 1931 connector between that line and the Durbin Subdivision, built on a 2½ percent grade, let an Elkins–Spruce train stay on the mountain instead of running east to Durbin and backing out. Before that connector, the Durbin Branch was the only way off the GC&E.
Durbin itself was a small terminal with a large job. The Western Maryland depot and water tank sat beside the C&O’s Greenbrier Branch. A WM Consolidation could stand in front of the depot while a C&O doodlebug, bound south for Cass and Marlinton, waited on the other railroad. That is the photograph above: H-7B No. 752 on the home road, C&O 9055 on the connection. Durbin was near the north end of the Greenbrier, not the middle of it. From here the C&O followed the river south, past Cass, to the main line at Ronceverte.
What the branch did all day
The ordinary train was a local. It left Elkins with empties for the coal sidings and the lumber mills, picked up loads on the way south, and did the same work northbound. Tanbark, mine supplies, and a merchandise car for a store at Bemis or Glady rode with the hoppers. The grades meant short trains and a Consolidation that was already working hard with a modest consist. This was not a place for the I-2 Decapods or the 2-8-8-2s. Those engines belonged on the Blue Ridge and on Black Fork’s heavier coal. The Durbin Branch was a 2-8-0 railroad.
The junction made some of those locals more than locals. In late 1923 the two companies agreed to interchange at Durbin as a north-south route. Heavier rail went down on the Greenbrier, and on January 1, 1924, through cars began moving between Ronceverte and Elkins. For a few years a load of Greenbrier lumber or a car of Elk River coal could cross the mountain system without going out to Cumberland and back. The volume was never Alphabet Route volume. It was enough to justify the interchange, a depot, and a mixed train.
Passenger service thinned to that mixed train. By the 1930s an H-7B or an H-8 drew it, freight cars ahead of a combine or a coach. At the end it ran three days a week. Ridership was small. The train survived because the branch still needed a freight crew, and the coach cost little once the engine was going anyway. It was the last passenger train on the Western Maryland. The final run was April 10, 1959.
The engines the branch actually used
No. 752, in the photograph, is a class H-7B Consolidation, one of 750–764, built by Richmond in 1912 with 60-inch drivers. That is the size of engine the Durbin job wanted: enough tractive force for a 2 percent railroad, small enough for the curves and the short turnouts at a mill. The H-8s, Schenectady 1914, with 52-inch drivers, shared the work. Both classes were still the usual power on the mixed train in the years just before the diesels. The full class list is the steam roster.
The last passenger engines were diesels. Four Alco RS3s, 192, 193, 194, and 197, arrived between May 1953 and September 1954 with a steam generator and a dynamic brake stuffed into a high short hood. Crews called them hammerheads. They drew the mixed train in its last seasons, then stayed in freight service after the coach came off. Geeps and the other RS3s covered the branch once steam was stored. Four-axle power remained the rule. The curves that had kept the 2-8-8-2s on the Blue Ridge kept the SD40s off this subdivision. The serials are the diesel roster.
A branch without its other railroad
The C&O filed on March 18, 1975, to abandon 92 miles of the Greenbrier from near North Caldwell to Durbin, and to leave the Western Maryland a 2.84-mile stub from Durbin up to Bartow. The Commission gave the C&O permission in 1978. Operations over most of that line ended at the close of 1978, and the rail was coming up in 1979. The Greenbrier River Trail is that grade. Once the southern connection was gone, the Durbin Branch no longer had a railroad to meet.
Chessie kept a local service a few years longer. In June 1983 the Western Maryland, the C&O, and the B&O asked to abandon the WM from Greenbrier Junction to Durbin, and the leftover C&O from Durbin to Bartow. The application priced a rehabilitation of Glady Tunnel at $565,000, and another $575,000 to tie and surface the line. The traffic would not pay for either. The last trains ran in November 1983. The Commission approved the abandonment on December 6, 1983, and service was discontinued on February 15, 1984.
What remains of the old subdivision is the Elkins end, from town out to Cheat Junction, owned by the West Virginia State Rail Authority and operated by the West Virginia Central. The rest of the grade toward Durbin is quiet. The wye at Durbin, where this branch once met the Greenbrier, is the north end of today’s Durbin & Greenbrier Valley. The Consolidation in the photograph, and the doodlebug beside it, were the daily railroad at that wye.
Related reading
- Western Maryland Railway · Elkins · Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk
- Steam roster · Diesel roster
- The Durbin Route, William McNeel · Durbin & Greenbrier Valley · West Virginia Central · Cass Scenic Railroad
Sources
- McNeel, William. The Durbin Route. The Coal & Iron’s 46.9 miles, the July 27, 1903 opening, and the C&O Greenbrier’s arrival at Durbin on May 26, 1902
- Cook, Roger, and Karl Zimmermann. The Western Maryland Railway: Fireballs and Black Diamonds. H-7B and H-8 assignments on the Durbin mixed
- Western Maryland Railway. Last passenger train, the Elkins–Durbin mixed, April 10, 1959. Hammerhead RS3s 192–194 and 197
- Interstate Commerce Commission abandonment record, Chesapeake & Ohio Greenbrier and Western Maryland Durbin, 1975–1984. Application of June 1983; last trains November 1983; approval December 6, 1983; discontinuance February 15, 1984
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