Railfanning from Orleans Road to Paw Paw
The next rail-oriented town that you may want to visit is Orleans Cross Roads. To get there from Panorama, take Route down into Great Cacapon (this is the town that you can see from Panorama), find a road called Woodmont Road that heads off towards the right. Take Woodmont Road to Orleans Road. Turn right on Orleans Road and follow this road to the small town of Orleans Cross Roads. You may want to have a good county map of Morgan County, West Virginia, handy, as I am not very familiar with this area. Orleans Cross Roads is the site of AD tower. It controlled the eastern end of the Magnolia Cut-off. In the 1960’s, the B&O railroad closed the tower and remoted the interlocking to the also-closed FN tower in Patterson Creek.

The next good location is Doe Gully. To get there from Orleans Road, go back to where you turned off of Woodmont Road and turn right. You should now be on Doe Gully Road. Take this about ¼- ½ mile to Doe Gully. Doe Gully is where a deep, 4-track cut was made by the railroad to get through through Sideling Hill.

The Magnolia Cutoff was built as a straighter line over following the old line along the Potomac River. Doe Gully Road is the access road to the mainline and it follows approximately what was the old mainline alignment; you will be on this road until you get to Paw Paw. About ¼ mile west of Doe Gully, you will start to see signs of another abandoned railroad grade down below on your right; this is the old Western Maryland Railway that also threaded its way through this area on its way toward Cumberland. Trains along this route stopped running and the track was torn up in 1976, when the WM was merged into Chessie. ½ mile after the WM swing away from the road and goes across the river, you will get back to the CSX mainline. This is a good location to photograph westbounds as they come out of Randolph Tunnel.

When you are done taking pictures at the tunnel, take Doe Gully Road for ½ to 1 mile to a spot on the railroad known as Hansrote. Stopping at Hansrote will afford you pictures of eastbounds as they come out of Stuart Tunnel.

After Hansrote, take the access road for 2 to 4 miles to the rather sizable (for this area) town of Magnolia. While you are driving, you will now notice that the WM is up the hill on your left. Magnolia Bridge is where you can get good pictures of trains as they come out of either Stuart or Graham Tunnels. When you are finished in Magnolia, continue down the access road for another 2 to 4 miles until you cross under Kessler Bridge. The bridge is defined by Railpace as a designated photo location. After you finish at the bridge, continue on the access road for about 1 mile. You will see the mainline up on the hillside above and on the left. You will soon get to the famed "Concrete Wall." This is another spot that is a designated photo location. To access the tracks use the stairs. A few more feet down the access road is Carothers Tunnel. This tunnel is accessible at both ends.

The access road finally comes out in Paw Paw, WV. Two miles west of Paw Paw is the site of the also closed NO, or Okonoko, Tower, which controlled the western end of the Cutoff. This tower was also closed in the 1960’s and the interlocking was remoted to Patterson Creek.

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