Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk Railroad: Western Maryland’s Logging Line
Published: September 26, 2026
By: Adam Burns
The Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk was a logging railroad that the Western Maryland bought for the coal underneath the cut-over land. At its peak it was about 175 miles long, from Cheat Junction to Bergoo, and it was called the longest logging railroad in the country. The eight miles from Cass to Spruce were Shay territory and still are, on the Cass Scenic Railroad. What the Western Maryland owned, from 1927, was the line north and west of Spruce: the Elk River Branch, run for coal, with Consolidations and then four-axle diesels.
Way off the beaten path in the hollers of West Virginia, Western Maryland RS3 #187 and a trio of F7A's run the GC&E; Subdivision (built as the Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk Railroad) near Laurel Bank along the Elk River (and the location of a small yard) during the 1970's. This branch to Webster Springs once handled coal and timber products (logs/lumber). It survived into the CSX era and the rails remain in place but have not seen a train since the mid-1990's. The right-of-way is owned by the West Virginia State Rail Authority. Wade Massie collection.
On this page: At a glance · A logging railroad · The Western Maryland buys the north end · Coal, curves, and a small yard · Shays, then Consolidations · What is left on the mountain
At a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Railroad | Greenbrier & Elk, renamed the Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk in 1910. Western Maryland’s GC&E Subdivision after 1927 |
| Owner, at first | West Virginia Pulp & Paper. About 173,000 acres near Cass |
| Logging heart | Cass to Spruce, 8 miles, Shay railroad. Spruce had the pulp mill, the store, and the camp |
| Peak | About 175 miles, Cheat Junction to Bergoo |
| WM purchase | 1927, the lines north and west of Spruce. Operated as the Elk River Branch, for coal |
| Summit | Summit Cut, near Spruce, 4,066.6 feet. Highest main-line summit in the East |
| The connector | 1931, about 2½ percent, so an Elkins–Spruce train no longer had to run to Durbin and back |
| WM power | H-7 and H-8 Consolidations. Then RS3s and F-units, as at Laurel Bank |
Built to move logs, and nothing else at first
West Virginia Pulp & Paper bought the timber, and the timber would not move until a common carrier reached it. The Chesapeake & Ohio opened its Greenbrier Branch to Durbin on May 26, 1902. The mill and the camp went in at Cass, on that branch, and at Spruce, eight hard miles up the mountain. Those eight miles were geared-locomotive railroad from the start. Grades and curves that a rod engine would not take were the ordinary profile. Spruce had a pulp mill, a company store, a yard, and housing. In 1910 the logging road took the name it is remembered by, the Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk, and it kept building: north to a connection with the Coal & Iron at Cheat Junction, and west along the Elk River toward Bergoo.
At full growth the GC&E ran about 175 miles. That figure is what people mean by the longest logging railroad in the country. Most of those miles were spurs into a hollow, used until the timber on that hollow was gone and then pulled up. The main stem was shorter, and it was the stem the Western Maryland wanted.
A 1934 system map of the Western Maryland Railway featuring the Greenbrier, Cheat & Elk Subdivision branching off the railroad's Durbin Branch at Cheat Junction. American-Rails.com collection
1927: the railroad changes jobs
The Western Maryland bought the GC&E lines north and west of Spruce in 1927 and ran them as the Elk River Branch. The pulp company kept an interest in the Cass–Spruce piece and the timber that remained. The WM’s reason was coal. Heavier rail and a few eased curves went in. The worst curves kept Maney guard rails, the sort of hardware an interurban used, because a flange would otherwise climb the high rail.
Summit Cut, near Spruce, stands at 4,066.6 feet, the highest summit on a main line in the East. Trains between Elkins and that summit had, at first, an absurd route. The GC&E met the Durbin Branch at Cheat Junction, so a train for Spruce ran east to Durbin and then reversed. In 1931 the Western Maryland built a connector of about a mile on a 2½ percent grade and took the reverse move out of the timetable. After that, Elkins to the Elk River was a railroad in one direction.
Coal, a sawmill spur, and the yard at Laurel Bank
Once the WM owned it, the day’s work was a mine run. Empties left Elkins for tipples along the Elk River. Loads came back to be classified for Cumberland, or, while the Durbin interchange lasted, for the Chesapeake & Ohio at Durbin. Timber did not stop in 1927. Logs and lumber still moved, in smaller lots, and a spur that had been a logging camp became a coal siding with a lumber dock beside it. Laurel Bank, on the Elk River, was one of the few places with a yard long enough to be called one. The 1970s photograph there is the diesel version of the same job: an RS3 and three F7As, far from a main line, with hoppers and whatever local freight the branch still produced.
Webster Springs was the far end after 1929, when the Western Maryland bought the West Virginia Midland and kept only the 1925 piece from Webster Springs to Bergoo, about 12 miles. The town had a depot, a train-order office, and a short sidetrack. Beyond it the railroad crossed the Elk to a tipple on the Back Fork. That was the west end of a division that had started as a logging show.
The trains were short. Grades and curvature set the tonnage the way Black Fork set it, at a smaller scale. A crew out of Elkins expected to spend the day on the branch and to come home with a train the yard could add to a Cumberland coal drag. Nobody dispatched a time freight over Summit Cut.
The engines that fit
Shays built the railroad and, on the Cass–Spruce side, never really left it. Under Western Maryland ownership the rod engines were Consolidations, H-7s and H-8s, the same classes that worked the Durbin Branch and the other Elkins lines. The H-8’s 52-inch drivers were there for railroad like this. One geared engine on the WM roster had GC&E ancestry: Shay No. 5, a four-truck Lima of 1910, retired in 1954. Shay No. 6, Lima’s last and the famous one, was the Chaffee Branch engine, not this one. The classes are the steam roster.
Diesels were the same four-axle fleet Elkins used everywhere else. RS3 187 and the F7As at Laurel Bank are the picture. A six-axle unit was the wrong wheelbase for Maney-guard-rail curves. The branch dieselized when the rest of the Elkins Division did, and it kept those covered wagons and road-switchers into the 1970s, which is late for an F-unit anywhere except a mountain branch that could not use what replaced them. The serials are the diesel roster.
Cass has one end, the state has the other
The Cass–Spruce Shay railroad is the Cass Scenic Railroad, and it is the part of the GC&E the public knows. The Western Maryland portion is quieter. Cheat Junction to Big Cut, near Spruce, is owned by the West Virginia State Rail Authority and tied into the Cass operation and the West Virginia Central. The rail from the Elkins side toward Webster Springs and Bergoo stayed in place after the trains stopped in the mid-1990s. CSX had taken the Tygart and Laurel subdivisions out of service in the middle of that decade, and the state bought what was worth keeping.
A through tourist loop, Elkins to Cass and back by way of Spruce, has been drawn more than once. The missing pieces are the abandoned Durbin Branch and the C&O between Cass and Durbin, which the 1985 flood finished as a railroad. Until those are rebuilt, the GC&E remains two railroads that used to be one: geared engines above Cass, and a coal branch down the Elk that the Western Maryland ran with Consolidations and, later, with an RS3 and three F-units at Laurel Bank.
Related reading
- Western Maryland Railway · Elkins · Durbin Branch
- Cass Scenic Railroad · West Virginia Central · Durbin & Greenbrier Valley
- Steam roster · Diesel roster
Sources
- Warden, William. West Virginia Logging Railroads. West Virginia Pulp & Paper, the Cass–Spruce Shay railroad, and the GC&E’s growth toward Cheat Junction and Bergoo
- Cook, Roger, and Karl Zimmermann. The Western Maryland Railway: Fireballs and Black Diamonds. The 1927 purchase and H-7 / H-8 operation on the Elkins branches
- Western Maryland Railway. Summit Cut, 4,066.6 feet. The 1931 connector between the GC&E and the Durbin Subdivision
- McNeel, William. The Durbin Route. Chesapeake & Ohio open to Durbin on May 26, 1902, which gave the logging railroad its first outlet
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