The former Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac railroad in Virginia is exactly what it says on the tin. Independent until 1991, it was very northern in its engineering with a fast alignment, robust bridges, plans for quad-tracking and a significant number of brick interlocking towers. Over Memorial Day weekend 2023 I set out with some friend to do a drinking tour in Richmond's Scott's Addition food and entertainment district that happened to sit next to the northern end of the Richmond Belt Line that hosts at least 7 daily Amtrak round trips to and from various points south. On the trip south I made a variety of RF&P related stop followed by an extended drinking opportunity by the northern end of the Belt Line. You can find the full set of these and a few ancillary photos here ( mirror ).
The first stop was the relatively new VRE Spotsylvania station, located adjacent to the pre-existing layover yard south of Fredericksburg. Opened in 2015 it expanded the reach of the VRE Fredericksburg line south of Fredericksburg and also allowed for a larger park and ride facility than was possible in the downtown. The single side platform is best known for its single track cantilever mast.
Shortly before its absorption into CSX it had undergone some re-signaling projects so when CSX initiated its own PTC driven re-signaling around 2012, a number of RF&P vintage signals were retained on the southern portion south of Fredericksburg with most being of the automatic block type. The JONES XING signal at Milepost 45 (from Richmond) is one such location with the upper heads consisting of US&S R-3 type monoblock cast iron signals with large "elephant ear" style targets. The lower Darth Vader type signal head was added during the c. 2012 re-signaling project to add more 4-block signaling territory. Note the RF&P era "number plate" stenciled on the side of the upper target.
Here we can see the JONES XING signals being split by Amtrak P42DC #148 with Newport News Regional Train 194.
A few miles to the south in the town of Milford we find the long closed MD tower. The RF&P built a large number of robust brick interlocking towers with examples at Fredericksburg, Milford, Doswell and Staples Mill Road surviving today.
Here southbound Amtrak Palmetto Train 89 passes MD tower with P42DC #51 leading.
I made a second stop at the Milepost 27 RUTHER GLENN signals as well, my visit did not like up with any train movements.
Every time the DC Metro opens one or more new stations they give out promotional pennants. The last two were fairly major consisting of the Silver Line phases 1 and 2. However infill stations also count and in May of 2023 the Metro opened its last new station for the foreseeable future, Potomac Yard (or Potomac Yards if one happens to be from Baltimore). Located between the Pentagon and downtown Alexandria, VA, the Potomac Yard is located on the site of the former RF&P rail yard of the same name where Pennsylvania Railroad and Conrail freight trains from the NEC would forward their carloads to either the RF&P or Southern Railway for destinations in the south. Ultimately railroad consolidation made this practice unnecessary and Potomac Yard the railroad yard ceased to be a thing in the mid-1990's. The availability of Potomac Yard for development happened to coincide with Northern Virginia's economic boom and in the 2010's plans by Amazon and other tech companies to build out the former Potomac Yard site spurred the need for direct DC Metro rail service. You can check out my photos of the opening day festivities here ( mirror ).
The DC Metro is known to open some of its new stations at odd times with Silver Line Phase 2 opening at 2pm on a Tuesday. However unlike both Silver Line phases, Potomac Yard did not have a mid-day ribbon cutting with an official first train. It would open with the regular start of service on Friday May 19th. Because there was no way (or incentive) for me to get there for the pre-dawn first train, I picked an appropriately early MARC commuter train, led by Kab Kar #7856 at the Halethorpe station, to get me to DC in time to hopefully get a station pennant before supplies ran out.
To get to the new Potomac Yard station I would take the Read Line from Union to Gallery Place and then transfer to a Yellow Line. While waiting for the latter here is a photo of WMATA 6k car #6098 on a Green Line routing at Gallery Place.
For much of the previous year the DC Metro's Long, aka Fenwick Bridge over the Potomac River was closed for repairs, resulting in the temporary elimination of the Yellow Line. The bridge had re-opened in time for the Potomac Yard inauguration and I got this forward looking video document whatever work had been carried out.
Although I wasn't on any sort of official first train, I still grabbed some video of my own personal first arrival at Potomac Yard with this southbound car view video starting at National Airport.
The new station is a pretty basic side platform affair with a new crossover and direct fixation track. Potomac Yard is on the Blue Yellow concurrency so there was a pretty constant stream of trains. The arrival board made use of LCD screens instead of LED dot matrix displays.
While most were 3k and 6k trains, like #3004 below, a few of the 76-car 2k fleet, like #2066, was still running around due to lingering issues with the 7k wheelsets.
The station has a single point of entry and exit at the north end, which results in a long walk for anyone getting on or off at the southern end of the train. Here 6k car #6168 sits under the north end mezzanine.
I was joined on the opening day festivities by Sandbox John, who had attended every Metro opening since day one, and even appeared on a pre-opening promotional film. Unfortunately he neglected to collect the pennants early in his streak and therefore lacks a complete set.
The old C-line right of way had already been planted over for visual remediation. Because the station was on park service property, a lot of work was put into the aesthetics of the station. This contributed heavily to the $300 million cost. The station does contain a "secret" exit to the adjacent Potomac bike trail via two elevators from the mezzanine outside of fare control.
Of course the 7k cars were out and about, but their proportion was still lagging due to the ongoing wheelset repairs.
Because the new station would create additional power draw from acceleration and deceleration, the existing substation was expanded with two new transformers.
In May of 2023 I was invited to give my PRR Main Line signaling talk to the Philly Chapter NRHS which has their meetings in the SEPTA Elkins Park station building on the Reading side trunk line. In this set of photos I will feature my travel up via Amtrak and SEPTA followed by some unrelated NJT Atlantic City Line photos and a visit to the 30th St parking deck to check out the growing stash of Acela II's in the Penn Coach Yard. The full gallery can be found here ( mirror ).
I actually started my trip in Silver Spring after a dinner with friends. Here is my inbound 2k series Metro train with #2024 on the rear.
Approaching Union Station I passed K TOWER along with a rather dreary looking MARC GP40WH-2 #68 that is currently used in work, switching and rescue service.
I was catching an Acela up to Philly that day because Amtrak's price structure makes it pretty affordable. Here we see power cars #2019, #2015 and #2029 lined up on tracks 17, 18 and 19.
A first class upgrade took care of dinner and drinks. This was described as Italian stuffed chicken.
MARC MP36PH-3C #27 at Baltimore Penn Station.
SEPTA Silverliner IV #127 arriving 30th St and PATCo car #1017 at 8th and Market.
To be fair I spent a night in South Jersey before the presentation. Here is PATCO Car #1032 at Westmont as I head back to Center City to connect with SEPTA.
As I was heading out during the evening rush were were a lot of express trains in play like SEPTA Silverliner IV #155 leading an express to Norristown and Silverliner IV #165 another express to Doylestown.
The parade of 300 series Silverliners IV continues with #361, #313, #345 and #357 all leading various trains.
There were a few Silverliners V like #715 and #733 shown here.
Here a 4-car train of Silverliners IV departs the SEPTA Market East station northbound on track #1. The consist includes #361, #362, #457 and #458
