HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Although it’s been sold out for the past 20 years and has been running for over 50 years, the New River Train is done. The Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society Wednesday officially announced the wildly popular fall excursion train was forced to shutdown. The termination was blamed on increased costs from Amtrak.
“We’ve run this successfully for 52 years,” said Joe Rosenthal who was Assistant General Manger. “We had good cooperation with CSX the host railroad. We’ve had good cooperation with local businesses and hotels. We’ve had over an $8 Million impact to the state of West Virginia.”
The two weekends brought nearly 5,000 visitors into Huntington with an economic impact of $2.3 million for the city and $5 million to the state of West Virginia. In addition, Railroad Days in Hinton, which benefits the area’s nonprofit organizations, relies on the passengers from the train.
The train was always sold out. The locomotive for decades has ferried riders from Huntington to Hinton up the New River Gorge during the peak of the fall colors in some of the most scenic territory of West Virginia. According to Rosenthal it had become impossible to set the budget because of Amtrak’s ever increasing costs.
“Last year we based our budget on the 2017 rates and when the new policy came out we had a raise of over $120,000,” he explained. “We had the rug pulled out from under us.”
The abrupt change in the 2018 rates left the society operating $140,000 in the red. Amtrak raised its rate for 2019 again in January and according to Rosenthal it has changed twice since then both times with a dramatic increase. The current Amtrak policy would allow the rate to increase with a 60 day notice. With no guarantee of what the rate for a private train would be in October, it was impossible to plan for the excursions in the fall.
U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito both attempted to work with Amtrak to save the popular excursions, but to no avail.
“Until things change in the upper management at Amtrak, the train will not run,” said Rosenthal.