Doswell VA 04.19.14: All's Well That Doswell
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
- There was less blue in the sky but plenty on the rails when I arrived at Doswell to finish out the afternoon. I was a bit too late to catch an empty coal train crossing on the Buckingham Branch's ex-C&O line, but I was ready when P42 180 rushed through with Amtrak's northbound Carolinian at 2:42, shortly after the hopper train was clear of the diamond.
The mid-afternoon lull began after the Carolinian and ended at 3:40, when L033 called the signal at North Doswell. After blowing for the crossing and then banging across the diamond, the engineer blew a quick salute as he spurred CW44AH 597 and ES44AH 3068 onward with a long intermodal consist. At 3:53, the birds gathered at the diamond took flight as a throaty rumble built in the east. The source of the birds' fright turned out to be ES40DC 5448 and ES44AH 3009, which appeared seconds later on the Buckingham Branch with a long string of neatly-matched empty coal cars headed west for their next load.
After the empty coal train cleared the diamond, nothing else moved for a while despite a fair bit of chatter coming over the scanner. I didn't make out a lot of the conversations, but it sounded like trains were being held on both sides of Doswell for something. In my state of bitter cynicism at nothing moving with my departure deadline of 5 PM fast approaching, I grumbled to myself that they were waiting for me to leave. It was probably the same cynicism that clouded my thinking and delayed my remembering that I was standing within sight of the signals at the southern end of the junction. I spun around and saw Q406 waiting in the distance, fronted by the weather-beaten, logo-less face of an SD70MAC. Perhaps I could hang around long enough to see whatever was about to happen...
My staring contest with the 70MAC ended at 4:50, when the reason for the wait finally showed up. L140, better known as the northbound Juice Train, popped into view beside Q406 and crossed over from track 2 to 3, led by ES44AH 798 and SD60I 8743. With the Juice finally out of the way, the jam began to unclog. Q439 was the first to move, heading south on 2 behind ES44AH 3003 and SD50-2 8500. The tail end of Q439 passed by Q406 just as the latter was getting underway itself. SD70MAC 4777 and SD50-2 8603 worked hard to get their train back up to speed as they roared past and crossed the diamond. As the tail of Q406 approached, another horn blew in the distance for the road crossing. Northeast Regional 195 flashed past behind the last cars of 406 and came into view just in time for a quick look through the zoom.
And I still made it home in time for dinner.
Imagine how cool it would have been to spend the day watching trains there in 1944
Very cool, I'm sure. Closer to the present, I have John Pechulis' 'Railfanning The Appalachian Region' series (3 volumes to date), and there are several scenes from Doswell in the late '70s/early '80s, including the original privately-owned Auto Train. I was surprised at just how fast the C&O used to go through here.
I would trade my shoes for yours to see an epic come from behind meet between Q406 and Q140 AND then a WB Q439, all within 15 minutes. I love your videos and hope to be there again someday.
As usual, great stuff. This appears to be a railfan's dream. The BNSF runs by the farm, so occasionally, among others, I see CSX engines. A year or so ago, two CSX engines were pulling a military freight to Ft. Hood, which is about 15 miles from the farm. Yesterday, I was traveling US 79 from Austin heading east, which runs parallel to the former MoP line, and a CSX was leading two UP engines eastbound with a mixed freight. On another note, back in the long ago when I was a brakeman for the SP out of Houston, I saw L&N, Southern, and N&W engines at the engine 'shed'. This is where we picked up our engines and cabooses, and then headed out to Inglewood Yard to pick up our train.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! Doswell is a great spot to watch trains - the problem is, there's so many good spots to watch trains on the RF&P Sub that it's often difficult deciding which locations to visit on a given day.
+FastFlyingVirginian was it near Kings Dominion
Also, nice sound of wheels over frog at 11:00 minute point as train passes!
Awesome video and catches Dave! Pretty nice action all in a day. It's interesting how you caught a train on the Piedmont Sub, that line doesn't see much action to my understand. All that single track. I'm sure this is unlikely to happen any time soon, but it would be cool if Amtrak someday would open a new station at Doswell for the Northeast Regional just so people can go to Kings Dominion!
The Piedmont Sub sees more trains than you might think - other than the BB traffic, CSX runs a lot of grain and empty coal over it. Sometimes it's frustrating to start a day at Ruther Glen and see nothing for a while, but while you wait you hear one train after the other calling for permission across the diamond. Reopening the Doswell station would be cool, but the BB uses it as office space, plus they are all sprawled out in the diamond with their facilities so it would take some serious reconfiguration to have a hope of creating room for parking.
***** Oh I see. I'm mostly an RF&P railfan, but sometimes I railfan the Peninsula Sub as well. And I don't see it happening anytime soon either, I've been to Doswell once and I've seen how it is. That would also be a lot of funding, plus Amtrak has never had a profitable year in its 43 year service life.
I live about 30 miles from the BB and I can tell you, every day (unless something is wrong with the track, and reroutes trains) at least one CSX will go west, but it Varys from day to day, one day you might end up seeing 12 WB’s in 24 hrs, while other days you might only see 1-2 WB’s in 24hrs, but with Amtrak, BBRR, CSX, and the SVRR interchange in Staunton, the piedmont (now called the BBRR West Mountain division) sees a lot of action
I love the title for this one, great video!
Yo . great railway video.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
Great video!
Love the title. Excellent video Dave.
how come mostly manifest?
Just timing, really. The other intermodals would have passed through in the morning or late at night, and I had to leave before the remainder of the evening Amtraks showed up.
oddly enough, three of the similar videos related to yours turn out to be cute educational choo choo videos, very weird, you should take some notice