Eastern Railroad Discussion > Buckingham Branch Questions

Good Evening and thanks in advance for your time. I will be in Charlottesville for a few days this week and I was hoping to get a little help on operations.

Z620 - What time on duty and where does the train generally go? Does it run daily M-F?

Z630 - Is it M-F also and what time on duty in Staunton and when does it generally get to Charlottesville?

Thank you very much!

Andrew (NYC)

Posted from iPhone

All trains work M-F though weekend extras are a rare possibility...the Charlottesville Yard crew usually comes out in early morning...when or whether they leave depends on what's on the agenda for the day, they may go east and work toward Orange and may and usually do go east to Louisa.  I don't know what hours the Staunton West local works...I never happen to see it for some reason. 

Staunton crew is on duty around 0600 M-F. In a perfect world, they're on the move around 7am and go west toward Clifton Forge M-W-F and east toward Charlottesville T-Th.

But the world is far from perfect. Some days the 620 comes west to Staunton because 630 often is overloaded with work.

The BB was/is trying to establish a dedicated crew to work Staunton east because the west crew has too much work/territory to cover to reliably cover the east run. Like a lot of railroads in the post-COVID world, they were having trouble staffing the job and I'm unsure if it ever started or this is still just planned for whenever it can happen.

Bottom line, if you want the Staunton job be there by 7am on a weekday and listen for the crew to come on AAR 23 (160.455) and talk to the dispatcher about where they need a signal to go. It is not uncommon for them to go west to Bells Valley even if they're making an east run because there is hardly any room to store cars in Staunton. That siding is used like the yard Staunton doesn't have.

Mike Derrick

Posted from Android

When CSX had that road, the Mountain local would work east Mon, Wed and West Tues, Thurs, and turn on Friday to afford a two day weekend. By doing this work that could be done going east would be done going east, and west going west....of course it all depends on which way a switch points. But, all work was covered this way every week all the way to Charlottesville. And in Charlottesville the C'ville local worked east, hitting Orange and Culpeper if needed, and winding up in Doswell, coming back the next day, again working what you could in the direction you were heading. But everything from Clifton Forge to Doswell was covered with two crews...granted now BB has coughed up more business and if a lack of storage or people is there...well that's in a way a good problem to have. (Doswell to Richmond was handled by an RF&P local....at least until the O'brien award was quashed....and by then BB was getting ready to take over. 

Thank you all for the great answers!

Posted from iPhone

The 620 goes on duty at 0600 and runs east Monday Wednesday Friday and west as the 621 on Tuesday and Thursday. 631 runs west Monday-Friday. The X450 which is the excursion runs Thursday-Sunday going west to Goshen in the morning and east to Ivy in the afternoon. As to going to Orange that is very much on a as needed basis. The 620 usually meets the 863 on Monday, Wednesday, Friday either in mineral or Louisa. You also have Amtraks cardinal Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, as well as the many CSX westbound overheads.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/24 16:33 by BandO946.

Excellent. Thank you!

Posted from iPhone