CVB provides grant to Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad

Submitted photo John Smith, right, president of the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad, receives a grant check from Anne Beardslee, executive director of the Elkins-Randolph County Tourism CVB and Welcome Center. The grant was secured by the CVB to provide funding to a local business that reopened its business this summer.

Submitted photo
John Smith, right, president of the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad, receives a grant check from Anne Beardslee, executive director of the Elkins-Randolph County Tourism CVB and Welcome Center. The grant was secured by the CVB to provide funding to a local business that reopened its business this summer.

ELKINS -- The Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad's New Tygart Flyer returned to the Elkins Depot on July 1 for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the railroad has received a grant from the Elkins-Randolph County Tourism CVB.

"We recognize the major impact the railroad has on the economic and tourism vitality of this county and the stability of many different service-oriented establishments," Anne Beardslee, the executive director of the Elkins-Randolph County Tourism CVB, said. "It seemed like the perfect business to recognize and assist because they never thought of abandoning the community and were anxious to reopen."

With many businesses nationwide struggling during the pandemic, the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation developed a mini grant through Tina Metzer at the Institute for Rural Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. Local Convention and Visitor Bureaus were given the opportunity to apply for the grant to be presented to an entity in their community reopening for business.

The grant check presented to the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad was for $625, which "will help them over a couple of hurdles as they open back up for business again," Beardslee told The Inter-Mountain Monday.

The Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad reopened their Elkins' excursion train business after 15 months of pandemic-related closure. Trains in Durbin and Cass that are part of the railroad began running in recent months, but the New Tygart Flyer didn't make its 2021 debut until July 1.

Not being able to run excursion trains in 2020 had a major impact on not only the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad, but on the businesses that are supported by the people coming to Randolph County to ride the trains.

"This funding is extremely important to kickstarting the Elkins operation after such a long layoff," said John Smith, president of the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad. "The money helps us bring increased tourism back to Randolph County and the local communities."

"I know all of us at the Depot and the CVB are delighted to hear the horn once again and to see people boarding the train in Elkins," Beardslee said.

The New Tygart Flyer will make trips out of the Elkins Railyard Depot four days a week, running Thursday through Sunday through the month of August. Rides on the train will be available until the end of October.

A trip on the New Tygart Flyer is a four-hour, 46-mile round trip that offers guest miles of mountain views along Shavers Fork. The trek also includes a stop at High Falls on the Cheat River.