Ashland, Virginia 10-29-16

[atrainguy60]

I was out this weekend visiting Richmond, VA for an occasion not related to trains, buuuut there was some time on Saturday morning to visit Ashland, which was only about 10 minutes north of where I was staying. After driving through Ashland, then following the mainline north to Doswell and taking some pictures of a few Buckingham Branch engines parked near the junction, I headed back south to Ashland and caught my first train, northbound Amtrak Northeast Regional #96.



After that, it was time to return to the original reason I was in town, but later in the day, around dinner time, I was free for the evening, so back to Ashland it was! It didn't take long for the first train to arrive, which a very long northbound CSX manifest:



After visiting Tiny Tim's Trains and Toys (which is a very cool store, btw), another freight, this time a southbound, came through town, not too long after the last.



After this southbound freight, I began crossing the tracks on one of the pedestrian crossings, and noticed the headlight of a northbound in the distance! This time, it was another Amtrak Northeast Regional, going through town without stopping at the station:



After this train, it was dinner time, but thankfully there is a nice restaurant right in downtown next to the tracks, the Iron Horse Restaurant. The next train to arrive was a southbound around Amtrak Northeast Regional, around 6:50pm, and a northbound Amtrak Northeast Regional sometime around 7:15pm. This last Amtrak was one of the most interesting, as it had a private Pullman passenger car on the end!





Finally, a little while later, came a northbound CSX coal train (I'm not sure if it was loaded or empty).



All in all it was a great time visiting Ashland! It's a very nice town with quaint downtown, with the busy mainline cutting right through town!