Jersey Mike's Rail Adventures: 23-05-27 PHOTOS: RF&P Intermediates

Friday, May 26, 2023

23-05-27 PHOTOS: RF&P Intermediates

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.

AY junction is located at the extreme southern end of the RF&P below Acca Yard where the Seaboard Air and Atlantic Coast Line railroads interchanged their trains for the final run to Washington, DC. Prior to 1975, through trains would use the 1917 RF&P Broad Street Station in a convoluted looping route that would run through the wye southward, then loop north and turn west onto the Richmond Belt Line. The new Staples Mill Road station eliminated this process at the cost of a high quality station within city limits. Today AY is split up into three interlockings under CSX with WEST AY located at the division post between the Richmond Terminal and North End (ACL) Subdivisions. Through freight trains will often stop here to change crews or drop of test slips for the RF&P cab signal system.

With a medium approach medium signal and a reverse #7 switch, I was expecting a northbound movement on track #1. However the first thing to show up was a northbound manifest freight led by CSX ES44AH #960, which stopped short of the track #2 signal.

After a brief wait Amtrak Norfolk Regional Train 158 rolled past with P42DC #159, crossing over in front of the CSX freight.

This was followed by southbound Norfolk Regional Train 153 with P42DC #18.

The manifest freight was then re-crewed and proceeded on its way.

A bit later I managed to catch the tail end of Amtrak southbound Auto Train which was engaged in a low speed race with a southbound CSX freight.

Before heading back north I stopped by SOUTH AY interlocking to get a photo into Acca Yard, where CSX C40-10W #5374 was visible and GP40-2 #6391 was flat switching cars.