Summer of 21 - #44 - Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, Frostburg Flyer

August 5th, 2021

We booked a scenic train day trip. I (Sue) had a "senior" moment when I booked the wrong trip. The Frostburg Flyer was a 2 hour drive and somehow I booked a different place that was 4 hours away. Fortunately I discovered my error before the day of the trip, unfortunately there were no refunds. We could have had a credit for a limited time but as we wouldn't be any closer couldn't take advantage of that. We cancelled and told them to give the trip to a local family that deserved it. We will never know if they did or not.

Anyway, I then booked the correct trip. Here's a LINK that tells you more about it. The trip is advertised as "a scenic railroad trip aboard a first-class vintage train powered by a historic diesel locomotive"

We arrived at the old Cumberland Station in time to collect our tickets and look at the exhibits inside.

Cumberland Station

Waiting for our train.

Here she comes, Choo!!Choo!!

Everyone boarded, we had regular coach seating as we didn't want to eat on the train. I had made a lunch for us to eat in Frostburg when we would have time to eat and look around the town.

We started out going through Cumberland.

Starting to head out into the country.

It was quite scenic but unfortunately nothing that we hadn't seen from traveling in the motorhome and car. We were sitting on the side where there were trees by the track and a mountain for part of the way and so you really couldn't see much out of the window.  However, this meant that on the way back we would be on the other side that had better views. It would have been nice to have good views on both sides!!!

We took some pictures out of the other side.  Fortunately the carriage was quite empty and so we could move to take pictures. 

It was about a 2 hour one way trip and got a little boring. See the trees whizzing past the window, yawn!!!!!

Now there was supposed to be eagles somewhere along the route and that they would  be pointed  out if they were seen. There was also supposedly some narrative, however we did not get any narrative over the speakers and I guess they were no eagles to be seen. The conductor did come round but didn't give us any interesting information, just asked our reason for coming on the train and where we were from. He had about as much personality as a GNAT!!!!  

Can you tell that so far we were not impressed.😏

We eventually arrived at Frostburg. 

We found a picnic table, which was slightly the worse for wear, and sat and ate our lunch.

Then we went for a walk.

We decided not to go into town as we wanted to look at a small park that was by the train depot.

Our train

It was nice to stretch our legs and it was quite picturesque.

There was a path that went through a park with metal sculptures.

This had been part of the National Road, which we first learnt about at Fort Necessity.

I'm not sure what this was a sculpture of!!!

This was the best one

Close up of the one above as we got closer

There were some tables in the small area at the end of the path and a group were having a birthday party. 

I'm sure this trip is better in the fall (autumn)when the color(colour) of the leaves is changing. You didn't know I was bilingual did you?? There's the American and the British versions.

We walked back to the train to start the trip back.

Bryan's seen enough!!!

We made it back to Cumberland, disembarked and walked back to the car.

The C&O Canal goes through here as well and I think it would probably have been more interesting going to the Historical Park but we had a two hour drive back to our campground so we took a couple of pictures by the car park and then headed home.

A frog to cheer me up!!

I took some pictures on our way home.

We saw some small calves in individual small pens(cages) close to the road and wondered what they were.  It occurred to us that it was probably veal being raised, it seems very cruel to me and I'm not sure of the necessity for it. I know it's a delicacy but I can understand why some people don't eat it.  I've never had veal, so can't comment on what makes it so special.  

 We arrived home safely after a long day which we were both disappointed with, but you don't know unless you do these things and we have been very fortunate in that we are not disappointed very often.