We all like high trestles with trains hanging out over the deck girders but there are only a few high bridges on the New River to model. However, several literal cliff-hangers are on the Rend Subdivision hanging 200 feet above and across the river from Thurmond . This is now the Thurmond - Minden trail in the "New River National River" park preserved as the most spectacular section on the New River.
You do not have to take the Rio Grande Southern into Rico to get cliff-hanger trestles. In November after the leaves fell I took a nice bike tour on the Rend SD. Most of the way the trail is on a rock shelf held with tie cribbing, several walls of stone, poured concrete or combinations of these. The surprise is a total of 5 each high deck trestles to parallel weak sections in the shear sandstone cliffs - great to model across the backdrop of layouts and modules.
Up Dunlop Creek out of Thurmond past Southside Junction the park has a trail head parking lot at the Rend SD switchback. From here it is easy walk of 1.5 miles to the trestles. The grade runs 3 to 4% all the way to Minden.
Going upgrade after MP 1 is a cut then the first and longest trestle with 5 spans totalling 250 feet. The trestle still has the big "Ohio" lettering from the C&O and it is directly across from the Thurmond Bank. Next there are three stone walls about 30' high and 90' feet long. One wall adds cribbing to complete the upper part of the wall. There are two cleared overlooks with benches that give good views of Thurmond even in the summer and other benches every 1/2 mile, a nice touch.
The second and third bridges each have two spans and the third bridge is on curve and turns the line up the Arbuckle Canyon and giving another good view down river. Above MP2 is another 5 span trestle including one span on 2 foot thick wood beams, more cribbing and a concrete wall 75 feet long and a single span trestle on stone abutments, and so on. This line has caused the C&O lots of problems. As one final statement the Peavine Ridge above has dropped a bolder the size of an apartment building directly on this trail and the rails are still reaching out like they were trying to escape. The Park has built 26 steps up and 26 down just to get the trail around the base of that bolder.
The trestles are built with on 48" high steel I beams painted black - and weathered. Each span is  about 50 feet long. Abutments and piers are mostly poured concrete but some are stone and of course all combinations of the above mixed with trestles, walls and cribbing that are an indication of slides and shoring up over the years.
Rounding the last curve into Minden you see the piers of a higher switch back to the right with the 2 spans removed. This is the Rock Lick extension completed in 1916 from Rock Lick Junction in Minden running 1.4 miles to Minersville. You will note Rock Lick is a good description of the topography. Continuing on Minden is in a high flat valley at MP4 and had 3 mines and lots of spur tracks running all over. Each mine had a run around siding that held 25 to 40 hoppers (siding length from C&O maps). According to the USGS topo maps all the tipples around Thurmond were at the 1750 elevation, several hundred feet above the New thus requiring coal elevators and/or branch lines up all the creeks.
C&O track plans show the Rend SD completed in 1904 by W. P Rend and acquired by the C&O the same year. If the VGN RR had been at Oak Hill first the access would have been much easier from the top than from the valley but the VGN did not have their main line in to Oak Hill until 1905. In the 50's the mines were closed and the line was abandoned. It's situation makes a wonderful trail right out of the head of the National River at Thurmond at the confluence of 4 C&O subdivisions, the Loop Creek, New River, Southside and Rend Subdivisions. From Thurmond you could catch a sleeper and be in Cincinnati or Washington in 8 or 9 hours. Thurmond is still a flag stop for AMTRAK's number 50 and 51 Superliners.
The "Rend" trail is mostly dry and hard packed gravel. It was much better than the Sewell to Babcock Park trail with no big rocks sticking out and with better views. Most of the houses in Thurmond have been neatly boarded up by the park but Minden is still thriving with kids riding bikes all over and dogs barking. Everyone is friendly and all like to talk about the great bike trail to Thurmond or about the mines and the steamers that used to come up the mountain.
Railfan Trips |
