Eastern Railroad Discussion > Questions for VA people

I've yet to shoot anything out in Louisa. How often do trains run through the town? Another question. How often is the NS Pennsylvania heritage unit running through the Orange area? I was eating at Wise Guys and it happened to come by while I was inside and with no camera.

Thanks

NS Heritage Units go through Orange, VA about as often as any other random road locomotive on the roster. Not especially predictable.

Louisa is a pretty slow place. That is the Ex. C&O line, now the Buckingham Branch, can see as many as 15 trains in a day, and as few as 5, just depends on the Newport News Coal empties, and the ammount of grain trains that come up the A-Line in Richmond and head west. Most I have heard/seen in a day is about 15, and one day just a month ago, i heard of 2 trains in 12 hours. If you are going to catch something though, it will likely be in the afternoons.

In my experience 15 is a very high count except during the flood of 1985.  If you saw 15 you were very lucky!!!   You will see the BB local either out of Charlottesville or Doswell and the CSX overhead empties but here lately those have been very slow due to the down turn in coal traffic.  Sun Wed and Fri you might see one hanging back waiting for Amtrak.

Gary
 

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NS Heritage Units go through Orange, VA about as
> often as any other random road locomotive on the
> roster. Not especially predictable.

As heritage units go however, we get the Pennsy more than our fair share.  Last year it was the IT that made a dozen trips through the area, and maybe second most common was the Southern unit.  The PRR has been on trains through here at least half a dozen times already this year. 

Would be nice to get a little more variety in that regard.  :) 

So that's why I haven't caught it in Toledo since its maiden voyage. Quit hogging it, willya? ;)

Some of the heritage units seem to fall into multi-weekcycles until they come due for inspections.  If a unit disappears into helper service in coal country, it will be gone for a long while.