That eyesore is the root of many traffic problems
in Martinsburg. Why does the city and the whole
county have to be held hostage by some dilapidated
mode of freight transportation ? It's ridiculous that
Foxcroft Avenue can't be linked to Lowes because
of that damn track. Not only that, you risk damaging
a rim or at the least ruining a front-end alignment
on your vehicle anytime and anywhere you have to
cross those tracks. Only in Inwood has any money
been spent to improve that crossing, although the
traffic mess in Inwood is a whole 'nuther story.

Why do we have to put up with this? Commerce ?
There's enough tractor-trailer traffic on US 11 south
of town to handle all of our freight needs. And that's
another thing....why can't they create an access road
off of Tablers Station Road to the truck depot behind
the old Corning plant , and get these rigs off of US 11
between Exit 5 and Exit 8? And when will the DOH
ever repaint the traffic stripes on our roads ???

Geesh...I could go on and on !!!

Nice place you have here, btw....

You know I think I've been only stopped by a train once at that crossing, and that was before I moved back here a year ago from 'Bama.

Precisely !!!

Even when you see a train, it's moving along at the
blistering pace of 5mph...what a joke !!! It's just like
everything else around here...empty buildings, barren
orchards, and a ghost of a rail service...

It's time this county comes to terms with the fact that
it's no longer a secret oasis from the counties on the
other side of the Blue Ridge....residents are coming
here whether they like it or not, so they might as well
raise taxes and fees and promote a better way of life
for those of us that desire certain services and are
willing to pay for them...

You know, that railroad that keeps you from being able to access Lowes from Foxcroft, has been running two trains a day for about as far back as I can remember. Dilapidated? If it was dilapidated the department of transportation wouldn't allow them to run. No, they can't invest a million dollars per mile into their line like CSX or some other big corporate conglomerate, and they don't fly through town at 50 mph and never will because of posted speed limits, but they are a private, local company employing people and moving freight and serving many business's along the way from Gore, VA to Hagerstown. Further more, you want three or four more trucks on the road to carry the same amount of freight that can fit into one railroad car, that you might actually have to wait for at a crossing once or twice in your life? My God, you can't get to Lowe's from Foxcroft, so shut down a railroad!?

Two times a day ?? I can't believe that, since I'm not home M-F,
but I certainly know they don't run every weekend, and if they
do make just 2 runs during a 24 hour period at the breakneck pace
I cited, then why can't they have more grade crossings instead
of forcing the majority to detour around them for miles ? And
in my opinion, the track is in disrepair...if you look closely at
it, the rails are uneven and the ties are rotting...no, it's no CSX
line, but that's not the point...if it was, I could see the safety
implications behind building around it, but then again, just like
drawbridges, our society somehow yields to the ways of the
past, and the unfortunate many have to sacrifice for the
sake of the privileged few.

Have you seen the track that runs through the middle of
Charles Town? Another example of something way beyond
its time....trains there travel even slower than they do in
Berkeley, and you can actually see the freight cars rocking
back and forth on the rails, as well as the rails rising up and
down and pulling the spikes out of the ties...it's an accident
waiting to happen....

BTW...I like trains, always have...built model railroads and
everything....I enjoy watching them. I have no problem
waiting at a crossing....it's the condition of the crossing that
bothers me. Have you seen the crossing gates on Route 45
at the Foxcroft end? Last I saw, they were bent over by
the wind to the point that they were leaning on the overhead
warning apparatus...and then you cross over the tracks and
the boards between the rails are loose (if they're even are
any boards there)...or the crossing on Tablers Station, where
you have to slow down or risk losing a molar because of
the bone-jarring conditions....pitiful.....

In my opinion I think more freight should transported by rail, but that's beside the point. All my family lives here, and I grew up here and it was a very rare occurance to stopped by a train on that track. You could virtually lay there for a few hours, and not have to worry about a train coming by. I also remember reading in the Journal where the City of Martinsburg fined the Winchester and Western Maryland for safety violations a year or so ago about their track's condition, and the condition of the buildings that they owned in Martinsburg. If I remember clearly the Winchester and Western Maryland had like no money to really do anything about it.

'lack of money'....that says it all for alot of things around here...

The Winchester and Western has actually improved quite a bit in recent years from what I've seen from Martinsburg northward (don't get down towards Inwood much). A lot of tie replacement and railbed repair.

A lot of rail lines have bumpy rails (seems to be pretty common among shortlines) - doesn't necessarily make it an unsafe line, just changes the speed limit.

The WW does have some pretty bad crossings, but they're not the only ones. CSX, for example, has some of the worse crossings in the area. For years and years the CSX crossing on WV 901 outside of Hedgesville was really bad, worse than any WW crossing in town. The Norfolk Southern crossing up the road wasn't much better.

The crossing gate on 45 near Foxcroft has unusually long crossing arms with a whole series of sections and cables, etc, because of the width of the road. This may have something to do with it blowing up against the apparatus.

You're right about the schedule, they don't run week-ends, except the occasional Saturday, but they have pretty much run two trains a day, M-F, one north, one south, for at least ten years. Every year their trains have gotten longer, their payload more diverse, fresh paint on locomotives and rail cars. They're making some kind of impact with their business, otherwise they wouldn't be in operation.

Fine...you've all convinced me that the rail line is
a viable entity, but that still doesn't settle the
problem I have with it: the substandard crossings
and the apparent restrictions on additional ones.

There's probably nothing that can be done about
adding crossings...I think there's some requirement
that to add a crossing, you have to remove one
somewhere else....that wouldn't solve anything,
unless they were grade separated, which would
be prohibitively expensive.

In this day and age, you would think that technology
would catch up with railroad crossing construction.
The crossing on Tablers Station Road is bone-jarring...
same can be said for the ones on Henshaw Road and
Runnymeade Road in Bunker Hill....even the crossing
south of there on Route 11 is poor, along with one
further south in Clearbrook, VA...I don't know who's
responsible for crossing maintenance. DOH or W-WM?
The new crossing in Inwood is fabulous. The rebuilt
crossing just west of Charles Town is a huge improvement.
I can't understand why motor vehicles have to take the
brunt of this shoddy condition.

Thanks for letting me vent......

We could do what Hagerstown Maryland did a few years back and boycott the crossing area that we deem unsafe. It didn't take long to hear the railroad was fixing the problem. Of course, the tracks near Lowes carry about 500% more traffic than the Hagerstown crossing. I travel this crossing every day and very rarely see any trains. I for one think our country made a big mistake when it started disbanning tracks across the US. Just think of the truck traffic we wouldn't have to deal with. (Sorry truckers)They have repaired the two sets of tracks on 901 in Hedgesville. That was a godsend. As long as the tracks could handle the posted speed limit, without lowering it to meet track condition, I would be happy.

How bout those tracks on 901!!!Smoooooth! Ye-Ha!

I wish they would transport 90% of all freight by train. You don't have to worry about some huge rig that could run you off the road, and it's a lot safer when transported by rail.