All aboard for the history, beauty, and excitement of railroading!  Old time railroad fans and new devotees alike visit Durbin to experience a fun train ride back into history. 

The Durbin Rocket Excursion Train is a ten mile, two-hour ride that leaves from Durbin and goes deep into the Monongahela National Forest on its scenic run along the Greenbrier River.  The 92 year old locomotive, Climax #3, is one of only three remaining Climax locomotives in the world. 

The Rocket offers “Moonlight Fire on the Greenbrier Rail Excursions” on Saturday night each month, June through October, when the moon is full. 

The Cheat Mountain Salamander, a self-propelled rail motor coach offers two separate wilderness excursions.  One trip takes you to the magnificent High Falls of Cheat, and the other to the logging ghost town of Spruce. Both trips are approximately three hours.

The Cheat Mountain Salamander departs from Red Run Road, one half mile north of the point U.S. Route 250 crosses the Shavers Fork River at Cheat Bridge, WV. 

Durbin’s Historic Railroads
In its heyday, Durbin was a bustling town where people strolled the streets and patronized the many shops.   Passenger and freight service on the line boomed, and agency stations and flag stops sprouted up all along the line. There were so many stops in the early days the saying was “a train had to back up in order to have whistling distance for the next station.”  

By the 1920’s, the logging boom was over, the mills were closing and passenger service on the line was reduced to a crawl.  Freight service continued to thrive due to the through service available under a 1923 agreement between the C&O and Western Maryland Railroad for the interchange of rail cars at Durbin.  Traffic passing through Durbin was so steady at one time there were eight employees at the Durbin Depot. 

The line experienced another boom during World War II when gas rationing curtailed automobile travel.  However, following the war passenger travel declined dramatically.  Passenger service on the Greenbrier Branch was terminated on January 8, 1958.  Freight service continued for almost 21 more years, and the last freight train rolled the rails on December 28, 1978.
 
For the next quarter century the train whistles were quiet in Durbin.  In 1996, the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad incorporated to bring back rail excursion service to Durbin.  The new owners, John and Kathy Smith, avid rail devotees, began to make repairs on the line. 

Eventually, all was made ready and operations commenced. Today, rail fans both young and old flock to Durbin to ride the trains back into history.