Cumberland is strategically located at the halfway points of the C&O Canal Trail and Great Allegany Passage (GAP) and patrons of these pedestrian byways look to Cumberland for lodging, meals, and repairs.
So far, there are two high end hotels and two boutique B&B’s within walking distance of the trail, and the YMCA that will allow hiker/bikers to pitch their tents on the lawn overnight.
If you’re looking for reasonably price accommodations, you’ll have to bike eight or so miles up to LaVale.
But what is a really major handicap to Cumberland is the unmitigated fact that patrons of the C&O/GAP Trails cannot ship their bicycles on Amtrak because there is no baggage agent to simply open a door on the baggage car in Cumberland.
Countless hiker/bikers on the C&O/GAP Trail have complained that they have had to make Herculean leaps in logistics just to begin or end their outdoor adventures in Cumberland.
If you want to see economic prosperity flow like a ruptured water main, someone strong arm Amtrak into hiring a baggage agent to attend to the bicycles destine for Cumber.
Or better yet, why doesn’t Amtrak just allow bikers to stow their machines in one of the lower level compartments for the three and a half hour trek to and from Washington or Pittsburgh for a small fee? So simple, yet so bureaucratically insane.
John Walker, marketing manager
Little Orleans Lodge
Little Orleans
Opinion
Being able to ship bikes by train to city would be help
- Opinion
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Maryland has stopped being “The Free State”
I am a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans and, last but not least, the National Rifle Association. I am a yearly member of the American Legion.
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Outrageous
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
This amounts to spying on an American news organization — common practice in dictatorships but scary conduct in a democratic system that prizes the public value of an independent watchdog press. -
Save the Bridge Program
Please do not close the Frostburg United Methodist Church Bridge Program. The community and many families need this program. Let me enlighten you about a few things.
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It’s good to be the queens
One of the many nuggets of knowledge that Crash Davis tried to bestow upon Nuke LaLoosh in the movie Bull Durham was that ‘strikeouts are boring. Besides that, they’re fascist.’
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Harper just needs to stop scoring the wall
• Happy birthday, Brooks Robinson. No. 5 will be 76 tomorrow.
Remember, in the words of Gordon Beard, “Brooks Robinson never asked anybody to name a candy bar after him. In Baltimore people name their children after him.” -
Town of Westernport needs a police force and a curfew
Since the consolidation of Bruce and Valley high schools the town of Westernport rapidly deteriorated from what was once a quite respectable community to a community in a decline in residents, and along with that came a collapse in local government due to lack of knowledge and bad decisions that set the town of Westernport back 60 years.
One bad decision was to give up their police force, and with no constant visual law enforcement it has created an open range for drug dealerss, addicts, thieves, drunks and speeding vehicles that choose to ignore our city laws and speed limits and have totally disregard for the safety of the citizens who are on the streets, especially the children who are like deer, you don’t see them until their in front of you. -
Financial gutting will damage school system
I am writing in response to the Allegany County Commissioners’ efforts to cut local education spending to the lowest possible level allowed under state law.
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Cemetery organization plans events to mark Memorial Day
This upcoming Memorial Day marks the 30th anniversary of the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization (CHCO).
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Rowley proof of experience breeding opportunity
When Bob Rowley learned of the fund-raising efforts to help provide Fort Hill football player Zac Elbin the opportunity to play in the Down Under Bowl this summer in Australia, it became a mere reflex for him to make a significant contribution on Elbin’s behalf. For while very few area high school football players have followed in his footsteps, Rowley, the former Fort Hill great from the late 1950s, had certainly walked in Elbin’s, having faced similar circumstances following his senior year in high school. And thanks to the support of the community, Rowley says he was able to realize an opportunity of a lifetime.
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Better fix it
The West Virginia Division of Highways should not give up on improving safety at the intersection of U.S. Route 220 and Stoney Run Road in Keyser merely because the intersection does not meet the state’s criteria for a traffic signal.
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Maryland has stopped being “The Free State”
