Qualla: North Bend Rail Trail

North Bend Rail Trail: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.5. CSX wanted $1.5 million for the corridor. West Virginia paid $320,000, took possession of the old Baltimore and Ohio Parkersburg Branch, and over the next several years turned a defunct rail line into seventy-two miles of public trail through some of the most layered country in the state. The North Bend Rail Trail crosses thirty-six bridges, plunges through thirteen tunnels - the longest of them nearly three thousand feet - and parallels U.S. Route 50 across four counties between Wolf Summit, just west of Clarksburg, and the outskirts of Parkersburg on the Ohio River.

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Image: CC BY-SA 2.5

North Bend Rail Trail: From Main Line to Backwater

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NKS22, Public domain. The rail bed under the trail was once part of a serious railroad. The Baltimore and Ohio's Parkersburg Branch connected the eastern seaboard to the Ohio River and, through it, to the Midwest. For much of the nineteenth century, this was a corridor of national consequence. Decline...

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Image: NKS22 | Public domain

North Bend Rail Trail: A Bargain Corridor

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. The state's purchase, finalized in stages between 1989 and 1996, was one of the great quiet land deals in West Virginia history. For a fraction of the corridor's original asking price, the Department of Natural Resources acquired a continuous east-west route across the northern p...

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Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

North Bend Rail Trail: Thirteen Tunnels and a Long Dark Mile

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Forest Wander from Cross Lanes, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. The tunnels are the trail's signature. Thirteen of them perforate the ridges of north-central West Virginia, the longest stretching nearly three thousand feet. One of the most traveled is Tunnel No. 2 at 1,086 feet, a short distance east of Salem. Walking into it is to leave summ...

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Image: Forest Wander from Cross Lanes, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

North Bend Rail Trail: Through Small Towns

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. Between the tunnels, the trail strings together a chain of towns that lost their rail-stop economies decades ago and have made varied accommodations with their second lives. Pennsboro and Ellenboro grew up as glass-manufacturing centers; Cairo was an oil-boom town; Salem and West...

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Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

North Bend Rail Trail: An Appalachian Greenway

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Teke, CC BY-SA 3.0. Under the state Department of Natural Resources, the North Bend Rail Trail has earned a quiet reputation as one of the finest long-distance trails in the Appalachians. The grade is gentle - what railroads required, walkers and cyclists appreciate. The scenery shifts from open far...

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Image: Teke | CC BY-SA 3.0