Martinsburg — West Virginia

An Eastern Panhandle railroad town where a century-old locomotive shop got a second life as an outlet mall, and apple orchards still ring the city just like they did when the trains were the point.

Martinsburg is a town that made peace with its own reinvention a long time ago. We came in off I-81 expecting a fairly ordinary Eastern Panhandle stop and instead found a downtown organized entirely around the ghost of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad — the old locomotive shops, roundhouses, and machine buildings that once repaired B&O engines are still standing, hulking brick structures with arched windows that now house the Blue Ridge Outlet Center. Walking between the wings of what used to be a National Historic Landmark repair complex, buying nothing in particular, felt less like shopping and more like touring an industrial cathedral that happened to have cash registers in it.

The B&O roundhouse complex

The roundhouse and machine shop buildings date to the mid-1800s and were rebuilt after being burned during the Civil War, when Martinsburg’s rail junction made it a target for both armies. You can still trace the curve of the old roundhouse in the shape of the current buildings, and standing in the courtyard between them, surrounded by soot-darkened brick, it’s easy to picture the place at full industrial roar — engines being serviced, coal smoke hanging in the air, workers pouring out at shift change. Lia found an old railroad plaque bolted near one entrance and read the whole thing out loud while I tried to imagine the noise this courtyard used to hold.

The brick facade of the historic B&O Railroad shops in Martinsburg, West Virginia

Tuscarora Creek and the orchards

Tuscarora Creek cuts through town below the old rail yards, shaded and slow-moving, and following its path on foot got us out of the historic district and into quieter residential streets of clapboard houses with wide porches. Beyond the city limits, the Eastern Panhandle’s orchard country takes over — Martinsburg sits in the middle of apple-growing land that’s celebrated every fall with an Apple Harvest Festival, and even outside festival season we found roadside stands selling cider and bushels of Golden Delicious just a few minutes from downtown.

Rows of apple trees in an orchard on the outskirts of Martinsburg, West Virginia

Getting There

Martinsburg is served by its own small airport (MRB), but most people fly into Washington Dulles International (IAD), about an hour and fifteen minutes east on WV-9 and Route 7. From Washington, D.C. itself, it’s a straightforward ninety-minute drive northwest on I-270 and Route 340. A car is essential — the outlet center, downtown, and orchard country are spread out enough that walking alone won’t get you far.