From the downtown Richmond area you have a number of choices. If you like doing
the highway thing, you can take I-95 south and get off at exit 73.
By regular road from the downtown area, you
can cross the river on 9th Street, 14th Street, or S Belvidere St (over the
Robert E. Lee bridge). On the "other side of the river, 9th St turns into
Commerce Rd, 14th St turns into Hull St, and Belvidere turns into Cowardin Ave
and the Jefferson Davis Hwy.
Cowardin is convenient to NS's South Richmond yard, and 14th/Hull Streets takes you right by the Old Dominion Rwy Museum.
Norfolk Southern's local office is off the end of McDonough St as you come off the 9th Street bridge onto Commerce.
This was a former C&O yard, and is located on
the south eastern side of Richmond.
C&O "R" Cabin
At the west end of the yard, adjacent to Orleans Street, stood "R" Cabin.
The tower controlled switches and signals at the west end throat of Fulton Yard.
The tower was a mechanical plant. During the 1940's, a US&S CTC system was
installed, and it then controlled everything from Rivanna Junction, to its
eastern control point, a WB home signal near the Darbytown Road grade crossing -
that was also the eastern yard limit for Fulton Yard.
Open on Saturdays (11am-4pm) and Sundays (1pm-4pm).
The museum is housed in a former Southern Railway station on the south side of Richmond.
When I stopped by in August 2011 with my daughter and her family, they were still working on the museum for it's grand opening.
Many thanks to them for letting us take a quick tour!
NS's South Richmond Yard
CSX's South Yard & the Goodes St Crossing
GPS Coordinates: 37.510917, -77.428042 (at the crossing)
This grade crossing is adjacent to a short section of flood wall, and at the very north end of South Yard.
Looking north.
Looking south into the yard.
This branch darts under I-95 and follows Deepwater Terminal Rd.
These two North/South signals protect a small crossing with a small NS branch. The NS tracks don't appear to be signaled.
SB CSX Color Light Signal
The following two pictures show that CSX has replaced the 2 C&O type signals on a
cantilever bridge with a new single mast mounted color light signal :-(
Pictures are taken off of Gordon St, where it curves around by the tracks to 4th St.
This small bridge comes from the immediate downtown area, and heads to South Yard.
Underpass off of Gordon St, going under CSX
Back in downtown
Stopped here on the way out, will move to the other page one of these days :-)
The MOW truck was the only thing I saw moving during my short visit.
This is the eastern end of the elevated line going through downtown Richmond.
Under I-95
I know this is a highway bridge, however..... Interesting view looking north under I-95 from Maury St.
For now, Station 13 houses the oldest and newest equipment in Richmond.
Rescue 3 was the newest in 2011 when I got pictures of it. The
Hazardous Materials Unit is the oldest in service piece, dating back to either 1984 or 1987.
After taking all of the other signal pictures on this page, and as I was heading out to Richmond proper, I saw the
engines from Station 13 way ahead of me. I finally caught up to them on the bridge over the James River.
There's so much interesting stuff down here, so let's get busy.....
Maury St Crossing under I-95
The huge gates are flood control gates in case the James River decides to overflow it's banks. You can find them all over
the place, and the north side of the river in the downtown area has almost one continuous wall.
Maury St Crossing by 1st St
Retention Park and the Richmond Slave Trail
The Park was dedicated in April of 2012, nice view of the city from atop the wall.
The Slave Trail lets you walk along the south side of the James River.
Pipe Detail
The railroad tracks, being in the middle of a tank farm, goes over a bunch of
piping for them. Here's a detail shot on the north side.
Manhole and Cover
One of the other things around us that I find interesting
are manhole covers - I think they tell another story about industrialized
America. You don't see many like this around anymore, regardless
of where you go!
Abandoned industrial tracks - by Dinwiddie and Commerce
The tracks go up along the "northern" side of
Dinwiddie and served many business' along there.
Richmond has a plethora of railroad yards and trackage that are no longer with us, let's see what I can find....
ACL's Shops Yard
The Atlantic Coast Line had a yard by this name in South Richmond.
According to railsinvirginia.com: The yard had 10 tracks and a single
mainline going through it, with a couple of rip tracks for the engines to lay
over in between assignments. He doesn't have a date for the completion
of the yard, but it looks like it may have been in the late 1890's. It
was abandoned by CSX in the 1980's.
The ACL moved their Richmond area operation from Byrd Station to the Broad Street Station
when it was completed in 1919. Soon after, they shifted their
engine maintenance to the newly completed RF&P Acca Yard in 1924.
For more info, visit the Rails in Virginia website.
In the aerial view, you can plainly see where the right-of-way used to be.
The open land where the yard used to be won't be for long, as of last year,
something massive was being built...
ACL's James River Bridges
If you note, I called it "bridges", because if we examine the aerial view from
Bing Maps, we can see the remnants of two sets of supports for bridges instead
of just one. If you look closely at the aerial shot, you will see larger
bridge supports maybe every three or four smaller ones, most of which the river
has "taken" off their bases. Anyone have pictures of either of the old
bridges? According to railsinvirginia.com, the bridge was removed in 1970.
I've casually looked for pictures of either of the bridges, without success, so far.
This map should answer any questions about where the railroad bridges
crossing the James River are / were in relationship to each other.
Disclaimers:
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an expert. My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page. This is something I have fun with while
trying to help others.
Please Note: Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.
For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my
indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented
I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.
If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct. Once in a while,
an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or
disoriented. Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get
local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the
railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job
of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads. Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.
Aerial shots were taken from either Google or Bing Maps as noted. Screen captures are made
with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it!
By the way, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous
and/or other stuff.
Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit
is always given! Please be NICE!!! Contact info is here
Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly being inaccurate, wrong, or not true.
CSX's Fulton Yard
The Old Dominion Railway Museum
NS's South Richmond Yard
CSX's South Yard & the Goodes St Crossing 
Looking north.
Looking south into the yard.
This branch darts under I-95 and follows Deepwater Terminal Rd.
CSX Signals
SB CSX Color Light Signal
Looking south
Looking north.
