Eastern Railroad Discussion > Some abandoned or nearly abandoned spurs in Richmond, VA

These are some photos from the mid-2000's of NS spurs in Richmond, VA on the south side of the James River. Either this is all gone now, or almost there, unless someone knows other wise.

The first two photos show an NS crew shoving steel coil loads into the Reynolds alunimum plant. It closed in 2009 and now it seems like it has been totally redeveloped into towers for Suntrust Bank and some other stuff.

In the third photo, an old diamond in brick pavement contrasts with the then active aluminum packaging plant and some other trackage. That near track seems to be gone now and paved over. The coil cars are no longer around, since there is nothing to deliver too, and that whole factory building is gone.

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Moving east along the James River, NS has a spur that goes to Richmond's water treatment plant. Back in the mid-2000's I sometimes saw tank cars spotted there that seemed like they might only get switch out every couple of months. I never saw switching happening.

In the first photo the tracks curving to the right are heading to the CSX interchange, which I assume is still active.

The spur crosses CSX's Bellwood sub with a diamond. I'm wondering if that has been removed at this point.

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It then passes through the floodwall, and ducks under I95 with some street running.

A switch leads to a small loading/unloading track. In satellite views I just looked at they actually are ripping this bit up.

 

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Aside from that little spur, the track continues a bit farther to a larger (unloading?) area with switches at both ends and a tail track, and ends. These photos are from 2006, I think, and when I swung by here in 2009 there were no cars. I wonder if there ever has been traffic since then. And if not, maintaining that diamond on the Bellwood Sub must be getting expensive.

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Great photos.  Really useful as reference for modelling. Glad you posted them.

Jim

Re the Richmond water plant...the chlorine dock switch is gone...they switched to to granular chroline bearing product which comes by truck. 

So I'd the only customer is gone, then is the SAL diamond at Rockets removed?

Roadbed Wrote:
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> So I'd the only customer is gone, then is the SAL
> diamond at Rockets removed?

No, But it was replaced with and owl diamond.

This would make an awesome model rr magazine article.

Thanks for the updated info, surprised they replaced the diamond if no service has occured for so long.

engineerinvirginia Wrote:
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> Re the Richmond water plant...the chlorine dock
> switch is gone...they switched to to granular
> chroline bearing product which comes by truck. 

i wonder if this has occured with other sewage treatment plants? There are several around Ohio that appear to no longer use rail service that used to get a tank car every month or so.

I too always though a sewage treatment plant would be a neat facility on a model railway. 

Jim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/19 05:56 by tq-07fan.

tq-07fan Wrote:
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> engineerinvirginia Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Re the Richmond water plant...the chlorine dock
> > switch is gone...they switched to to granular
> > chroline bearing product which comes by
> truck. 
>
> i wonder if this has occured with other sewage
> treatment plants? There several around Ohio
> that appear to no longer use rail service that
> used to get a tank car every month or so.
>
> I too always though a sewage treatment plant would
> be a neat facility on a model railway. 
>
> Jim

Not sure, water plants need Chlorine and sewer plants need that and Sulfur Dioxide....both can be transported by truck and chlorine can be supplied in various forms including liquid, compressed gas, and solid matter. sulfur dioxide can travel in tank trucks and in compressed gas bottles of most any size and shape.....these varieties make truck shipping viable and the likelihood that many plants have switched to truck as railroads are loathe to do business with customers who can only use one car of product every few weeks or so.