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Rege Cordic,

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The Lazy River Route

a summary by Ric Collins

 

In this day of mergers, mega mergers, split-offs and just plain old abandonments, it is sometimes difficult to locate information about a particular railroad. Some are graced with historical societies. Others are not. Some don't even have a good historian.

   The Lazy River Railroad Company is probably somewhere in the middle.

   While portions of the Lazy River have been well documented, other areas have not be covered as well, or even covered at all, leaving us in the mode of having to be researchers and interpreters, much like an anthropological expedition piecing together fragments of a long-gone society.

   What follows is not complete, nor absolutely accurate. Similar to an episode on "In Search Of," it is speculation based on the documents that we have or have been able to locate, conversations we have had with Sir Regis, Hisself, and educated guesswork based on the sum of that documentation. Please also see our comments in the Coal Smoke article.

   We are unclear about just when the Lazy River first came to life, but it appears to be one of the life-long pursuits of it's founder. I would guess, then, that the Lazy River Railroad Company has existed in one form or fashion probably as long as Olde Frothingslosh itself has.

   Not having been a resident of West Virginia, I did not have the honor of ever living by or visiting the trackage of the Lazy River, but we do have some of Rege's photos and one of his essays to help guide us along that journey.

   "It starts in Grafton," Rege said, and "connects with the P&WV and goes into Pittsburgh from there." The route was generally based on the old Fairmount, Morgantown and Pittsburg railroad.

   Through the miracles of modern science (and the NMRA / Kalmbach Memorial Library) we have been able to unearth a hand drawn route map of the P&WV and have applied that information to the map information provided by SPV (Steam Powered Video) and their Railroad Atlas, Northeast and Appalachian & Piedmont editions.

   This pretty well defined the Lazy River as we understand it. There are, however, a couple of rather significant exceptions to that understanding.

   One is the fact that there was a narrow gauge part (or parts) to the LRR. This is documented quite conclusively in his essay Lazy River Idyll. We have no idea, however, where the tracks for this portion of the system ran.

   The other is the fact that, unfortunately, we have been unable to locate two of the towns located on the LRR, Glory, and Amalfi.

   Glory is a town on the standard gauge part of the LRR, and is depicted in the May, 1998 issue of the Coal Smoke. Rege noted that he borrowed the name for the town from the Jimmy Stewart movie "Fools Parade." I assume that Glory is Grafton, but I do not know that to be a fact. It would, however, make the most sense in our speculations.

   I am also assuming that the narrow gauge portion ran along what is known as the West Fork River, from the Gaston Junction, west. That may not be correct, however.

Amalfi Yard escapes me altogether. I do not have a clue as to where that might have been / might be.

   I have, however, located a picture of the Wabash Terminal that Rege said his Lazy River terminated at - ignoring, as he did, the fact that it burned down a long time back. [The Wabash Terminal burned down in 1948. Tt was actually the trainshed and elevated tracks that burned. The terminal building had housed the local Red Cross HQ during WWII. I remember going there with my mother - a first aid instructor - a number of times 1942-45 (aged 9-12). Mal Malloy]

   So with all those caveats in place, I humbly submit the map that is linked here for your consideration. The purple indicates the Lazy River Route. The red, the Pittsburgh and West Virginia. And, the green, the B&O connection at Grafton. The dotted lines are possible locations for the narrow gauge portion(s) of the Lazy River.

   It is a large map, screen-size-wise, but not a large one in bytes. You'll have to scroll around to view it all.

   As with all of our documentation, if you have additional information that may assist us, please do not hesitate to contact us.