Traveling the rails to picturesque sites

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The leaves start to turn early in this part of western Maryland, vying with the evening chill as a herald of what will come. On September weekends the trains are mostly full, crammed with passengers clutching picnic baskets and small children, puffed out with excitement at the thought of the big trip behind the engine. By October, the trains will run every day: Some are already sold out.

Think this is a snapshot from 1910 or so, during the golden age of rail travel? Not at all. The time is now, and those eager-eyed children and adults are all riding the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, out of Cumberland bound for Frostburg, 16 miles to the west, for a trip that will take them out of place, out of time and into memory.

Think Skyline Drive is too crowded at this time of year for a weekend excursion? This season, a good way to get off the beaten track is to get back on the track.

"We really gear up in October," says Doug Beverage, the WMSR's chief operating officer. "People come up for the foliage and stay and sight-see during the day."

Since the late 1980s, trains like this one have become increasingly popular in many parts of the country.

Excursion trains in West Virginia will take you past eagle's nests and company towns. In Pennsylvania, an excursion train travels through part of the Gettysburg battlefield, while the Strasburg Railroad makes its way past drowsing cows and Amish farms. And in Maryland, the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad chugs past thousand-foot-high mountains.

The scenery is even better in the fall, when the vibrant colors of oaks and maples take charge of the landscape with a vengeance. That's when tourist trains really make their mark, with added excursions and special trains that may offer Civil War history, dining and even a mystery or two to be solved along the way.

"It's surprising the impact that fall colors have had on the industry," says Don Ranger, executive director of the Tourist Railway Association Inc., a nonprofit corporation of railroads, museums and service providers who work together to promote the tourist railroad industry. "The average person in the nation doesn't care whether they are riding behind a steam engine or not. We had to find something else to market on."

Unlike the railroad in its glory days, the emphasis now is not so much on speed as on atmosphere. The WMSR chuffs along at about 20 miles an hour, all the better to catch a glimpse of historic Mount Savage, the town which produced the first iron rails in the United States, or the thoroughbreds racing the train as it passes Price's Horse Farm.

Chuff is the operative word on weekends. That's when there's a 1916 vintage Baldwin Consolidation 2-8-0 locomotive at the head, complete with fireman, brakeman and Howard "Hoagy" Hovatter, an engineer with more than 40 years of experience on the B&O before moving to the Western Maryland. There's also lots of smoke and cinders.