HINTON, WV (LOOTPRESS) – A sold-out Amtrak Cardinal arrived in Hinton this morning to drop off nearly 100 passengers who were eager to explore the many vendors set up at this year’s Railroad Days.
This year’s Railroad Days festival officially kicked off today and will celebrate 150 years of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway which was completed through West Virginia in 1873.
The approximately 73 passengers that got off the train were greeted with weather that couldn’t have been better for Friday, with fall colors starting to show in Hinton.
The festival will feature three days of food trucks, 100+ vendors, 24 bands, a beer garden, a car show, a kid zone, and fireworks.
Instead of arriving via Amtrak, the Autumn Colors Express excursion train would bring in most festival attendees but unfortunately, the train is not running this year for unknown reasons.
The Autumn Colors Express would be pulled by Amtrak engines with several vintage private rail cars in tow. The excursion was once pulled by steam power for a period of time during its sixty-year-plus history.
The Amtrak Cardinal will arrive in Hinton again on Sunday, the last day of the festival, and it is also sold out from Huntington to Hinton.