The Cardinal has a stop in White Sulphur Springs WVA. I've seen that the Amtrak station is just across the street from the entrance to the Greenbrier Resort. Seems like this would make a nice stop.
Wonder if anyone has ever done this and what it's like.
I hadn't, but I have heard from others that if you wanted to step inside Greenbriar and look inside there for a little while, you can. A la the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan, per other online boards talking about the Greenbriar, there's some sort of fee($10?) you have to pay before you can go inside. Not sure if there's a dress code you have to abide by, if you were only visiting there briefly during the day and not staying overnight.
And also as far as what you can see of the Greenbriar, you only can see side buildings of the Greenbriar Country Club, but NOT the main building itself from the train windows of the Cardinal. I will have to say that I liked the charming design of White Sulphur Springs' train station for Amtrak, but sadly I couldn't quite pull off a good pic of that before the train departed. Mainly due to the fact I was sitting, on the opposite side of the train.
For the record the station house at White Sulphur Springs is on the left as you're going east(right going west), and I was sitting on the right side when I rode #50 going east. Didn't ride #51 going west, since I had a ride from Culpeper, VA going back from attending a wedding there, to Chicago.
The Cardinal has a stop in White Sulphur Springs WVA. I've seen that the Amtrak station is just across the street from the entrance to the Greenbrier Resort. Seems like this would make a nice stop.
Wonder if anyone has ever done this and what it's like.
I suspect White Sulphur Springs would be a nice town to stay 2 nights at then ride back, but hadn't further investigated/researched things to do in WSS myself. And for all I know if one is on a budget, it looks like there'd be cheaper places to stay in that town if they wanted to save money, and just pay that one time daytime fee to walk inside Greenbriar to look inside briefly?
Have you considered? "not worried about delays"
Actually staying at one of the Cardinal's stops and catching the next eastbound? 48 hours later?
I've been thinking of doing that. I have no clue what's there at the many stops but I want to see some of those places.
Any advice from anyone? about places to stay a day in West Virginiay?
on the Cardinal route?
I probably will do such a trip, one of these days. Honestly of the places I researched in WV and VA, Charleston, Hinton, and White Sulphur Springs seem like they'd have the most potential, of things one could do near those stations. If you look east to the western part of Virginia, Clifton Forge does have a Chesapeake and Ohio(C&O) Railroad Museum, and Staunton would of course be a great older town to visit, with a lot of places to eat, Mary Baldwin College's campus there, and of course mom and pop businesses. As for Thurmond and Montgomery, not sure if a lot of things remain in either town(especially Thurmond, which is only a flag stop for Cardinal anyway), to warrant a visit there. Montgomery does have a few places to eat, but Thurmond doesn't have a single place to eat(not even a gas station!) left.
Looking west of Charleston, I stopped at Huntington once on a roadtrip, since my family was curious to check out Marshall University's campus. It actually was nice, and also there are a small number of restaurants and bars nearby. Not sure if one should more visit there vs. Charleston, but it'd probably be alright for a brief stop if one wanted to go there via Amtrak. I kinda wish I had spent a tad more time in Huntington to get a little better feel for that town/small city, but what can you do?
So long story short, I'd probably most look into stopping at Huntington, Charleston, Hinton, White Sulphur Springs, or Staunton if you wanted to do some sort of Cardinal train trip and vacation. Maybe also Clifton Forge, if you wanted to visit that C&O railroad train history museum? Hinton also has a bed and breakfast, and even has an outdoor festival the last weekend of every October commemorating the railroad heritage of Hinton(Hinton Railroad Days). Too bad that fest due to new rules imposed by Anderson, no longer has special railroad cars transported into Hinton for the weekend of that railroad fest, per other reports I'd heard about past years of that festival in Hinton.