What makes Ashland so special? The doubletrack mainline runs right through the center of town, with streets on both sides of the line. There are quaint buildings and a small college not to mention the Ashland depot which still serves as an Amtrak stop. Ashland is about 15 miles north of Richmond, and Florida Trains, as well as trains to Richmond and Newport News pass through and make stops in Ashland.
We were going to make the entire tape a hotspot tape on Ashland(Featured in Kalmbachs Hotspot book), but decided to go one step further and include Doswell along with Ashland. Doswell is about 6-8 miles north of Ashland, and there is an old depot(now a CSX crew building), and a diamond where the old Chesapeake and Ohio Line crosses the former RF&P. An abandoned tower guards the crossing. There is also a small CSX yard, and a couple of trains originate here, plus there some trains connect to the other line. The action has its peaks and valleys, with trains running in spurts, but generally you see about 25-30 trains during daylight hours. More than 2 days are covered in the video.
During some of the background information you will even see some vintage video with old Amtrak trains(F40's), freights with RF&P unit, and a Juice Train. This makes up perhaps 2 minutes of the video. Also we have a cool music video at the end, which is a bonus(not figured in the 70 Minutes).
In addition to regular freight and passenger trains, we will see special trains, like the Tropicana Juice Train, the Rock Train, the trash train, and Amtrak's Autotrain. This is contemporary Railroading at its best, in an area that is seldom seen on rail videos.
Customer Reviews
- 5 of 5
This is an Amtrak hot spot since several passenger trains pass some of which have been demoted in terms of service, names, or termini including the overnight Lorton, VA-to-Sanford, FL "Auto Train", the "Twilight Shoreliner" which is now an overnight non-sleeping-car-accommodation Northeast Regional from Boston to Newport News, VA, daytime Northeast Regional trains from Boston to Richmond/Newport News, the overnight "Silver Star" and now-defunct "Silver Palm" (currently renamed to the daytime "Palmetto" and truncated to Savannah, GA) from New York to Miami, FL as well as the daytime "Carolinian" between New York and Charlotte, NC.
One of the best things that I really like about this program personally is that it uses a time stamp model for nearly all trains between June 9 and 11, 2001.
The first day was filmed starting at 5:38 PM and ended at 7:38 PM.
The second day started at 8:30 AM and ended at 7:45 PM. One of the highlights of the second day was the last train of the day in terms of filming. It was a late Silver Star making an unscheduled stop at Ashland to pick up 2 passengers having missed their connection to Florida on an earlier Amtrak train due to suffering from jetlag flying from Europe.
The third day started at 8:30 AM and ended at 7:15 PM.
- 5 of 5
For the rail fans, both locations covered would be great spots for rail fanning, and Greg Scholl does a fine job showing the beauty of the region with the railroads in action.
It's worth the value and I don't think there is any real disappoints in purchasing this video.