Our Vision

The Western Maryland Scenic Railroad runs along a mountain corridor that once carried the Western Maryland Railway's coal trains between Cumberland and Frostburg before the line went quiet in the Chessie System era. In the late 1980s, Allegany County and the cities of Cumberland and Frostburg came together to buy back the corridor and give it new life as a heritage tourist railroad — excursions began in 1988, and by 1991 the operation had taken the name it carries today. Along with the tracks came a set of historic assets that still anchor the railroad: the 1913 Cumberland station, the 1891 depot in Frostburg, and the former Western Maryland shops across the river in Ridgeley, West Virginia.

At the heart of WMSR's mission is keeping that heritage genuinely operating, not just on display. Its signature locomotive, C&O No. 1309, is a 1949 Baldwin-built steam Mallet that once hauled heavy coal trains through Kentucky and West Virginia — and after a multi-year overhaul, it's running again as the largest operating steam locomotive of its type in the world. That's the standard behind every restoration project on this campaign: real, working equipment that carries riders through the Alleghenies the way it always has, not static museum pieces.

This campaign exists because keeping that kind of heritage running is expensive, and WMSR is more than a nostalgia piece for Cumberland and Frostburg — it's a genuine economic engine for the Allegany County region. The railroad generates an estimated $15–17 million in annual economic impact for local communities, drawing roughly 60,000 to over 82,000 visitors and riders each year. Seasonal favorites like the Polar Express alone bring in more than 36,000 passengers in recent seasons, filling local hotels, restaurants, and shops right when the two mountain towns need it most. Every dollar raised toward locomotive overhauls, passenger car restoration, and depot upkeep keeps that engine — literally and economically — running for the next generation.