A railroad station offers countless opportunities for photography.
As Kris and I waited to board the 10am Summer of Steam excursion, I made these photos from the platform of the former Cheasapeake & Ohio station in Staunton, Virginia.
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Sometimes you just stumble onto something cool.
We were driving north on Highway 13 in Virginia when Kris said, “Let’s take a left here.”
“OK.”
So we did, and we drove into the village of Cape Charles, where we found an unlikely railroad museum.
Among other things, it featured a replica ball signal—illustrating the early use of such hardware on the Delmarva Peninsula—a Bay Coast GP10 (an ex–Illinois Central Gulf Paducah rebuild), plus a selection of railcars. All are static displays.
We also discovered the Cape Charles Brewing Company, a beach, and vestiges of the old Pennsylvania Railroad, which at one time operated Chesapeake Bay car floats from the local harbor.
On the downside, we found that, apart from the museum, there’s not much railroad remaining on the Delmarva Peninsula in Virginia.
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We spotted the bridge at Goshen from window of Virginia Scenic Railway’s Appalachian Special.
A couple days later we followed the train on its westward journey over Buckingham Branch’s former Chesapeake & Ohio.
In addition to action shots of the train, I wanted photos of the old pratt truss—a twin span bridge that dates from 1890.
This was built to accommodate a streetcar line, but so far as I can tell, no trolley line was ever built to Goshen.
I made these digital images with my Nikon Z6-III, and also exposed a few Ektachrome color slides.
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The former Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad station in Staunton, Virginia, is a classic structure set in a tight location.
The old C&O main line—now operated by short line Buckingham Branch, which hosts Amtrak, CSX, and the Virginia Scenic Railway—is situated on a sharp curve, pressed against the rocky base of a hill that rises south of town. The street side of the station is bordered by cobblestones and faces a collection of historic buildings characteristic of Staunton’s downtown.
The station was designed by T. J. Collins and built in 1902 to replace an earlier structure.
Using my Nikon Z6-III with a 24–70mm lens, I made this selection of photographs in the late afternoon during the first of several visits to the station in late March. The high-contrast, directional light emphasizes the textures of the brickwork and cobblestones.
I’ve arranged the images below in the order in which they were exposed.
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We arrived in Staunton, Virginia, under sunny skies.
On our list of things to do was a trip on the Virginia Scenic Railway, the passenger excursion affiliate of the Buckingham Branch Railroad, which operates this portion of the former Chesapeake & Ohio main line.
Shortly after arriving, we visited the VSR’s new station facilities, located a short distance west of the old Chesapeake & Ohio station. Here, we found VSR’s “pocket streamliner,” as well as a freshly painted Buckingham Branch display train that serves as the gift shop and public restrooms for passengers.
I took the opportunity to make a variety of images of the Buckingham Branch GP16 diesel on display, along with photographs of the other equipment.
The next morning, we returned for our VSR excursion over the former C&O. We were not disappointed…stay tuned!
Tracking the Light explores the old Chesapeake & Ohio!
On June 8, 2015, I was photographing at Ashland, Virginia with Pat Yough and Doug Riddell.
I made this traditional view of CSX’s northward intermodal train Q034 on Fujichrome Provia 100F using my Canon EOS-3 with 40mm pancake lens.
This busy line is the former Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac mainline from Richmond to Alexandria, VA.
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