When you pointed out Slaters Lane interlocking that track diverging right actually goes to the Old Town Alexandria waterfront. It used to feed the coal cars to a big PEPCO power plant on the waterfront. When they came out with deregulation of the power industry there the plant shut down and unlike we were promised the electric rates skyrocketed. The track continued down to the waterfront where there was several warehouses and a boat dock on the Potomac river. They would get in freighters of foreign made printer paper rolls. The warehouse would transfer those to freight cars. Their sidings held about 15 freight cars and they would hook a cable to the cars and move them with a bucket truck. Once completed thy had the railroad pull the cars and bring in empties.

Got to do a run from Fredericksburg to Washington

14:29 fun fact, at that point you were passing over the infamous Bunny Man bridge

It's La'enfant interlocking to go with the plazza above. The state of Virginia has purchased the tracks through the former Potomac yards and the plans are to build a second two track bridge over the Potomac because of traffic capacity restrictions plus CSX has had multiple derailments at RO interlocking. VRE plans to partner up with Maryland's MARC transportation and provide connecting trains from Maryland through to Virginia once they get more capacity.

At least VRE keeps it's equipment clean. You might want to try that Amtrak!

Great video! I like the cab

This seems like something I would do if I can retire

Nice video! That pedestrian bridge at 25:46 is a great place to get up close and personal with a train sounding its horn before the Accotink trestle. Bring ear protection.

I grew up in Greensboro NC. In the early 60’s Southern ran 10 mainline passenger and 6 branch line and 4 mail trains a day thru Greensboro. They routinely ran 79mph the entire distance except when they got to the Potomac bridge. The Southerner was all coach and the Crescent was all Pullman But that changed and eventually they merged the trains. I miss the original Piedmont and the Greensboro to Asheville trains thru Winston Salem. South of Danville Va now the main is single tracked.

That's my old home system! Thanks for riding. I have some videos of VRE and Washington Metro from Cherry Blossom Festival time (and even earlier) I've been meaning to put on KZfaq.

Enjoyed this my friend, a little different from NY, at least to me.

My old office was behind L' Enfant plaza station. 600 Maryland Ave. Many a day I would sit and eat lunch at the station and watch the parade of trains (generally Amtrak and CSX) go by. I lived there for close to 17 years and I was never on a VRE train despite living in Virginia.

those VRE bilevels are the same ones that were made out here in IL before Nippon shut the plant down. Those are (for the most part) the same cars you rode in Chicago :)

Looks like the Harlem line, minus the 3rd rail.

You may want to check a trip by Amtrak, From Buffalo- Depew to Niagara Falls, NY That route by Amtrak was interesting

After college my friends and me would go down to the tracks near Burke Centre and Fairfax Station and drink beer and smoke whacky tobacky and this was before Potomac Yards was closed. Lots of freight trains went by plus Amtrak trains to Lynchburg and New Orleans. It was much busier then. We all grew out of the getting buzzed phase of life and got married, had children, worked in the corporate or trades worlds, so on. But it was a lot of trains even at night back then. Now everything heads west to Riverton Junction and Hagarstown, MD at Manassas. This stretch does see a rock train but no other freight runs this line that I know of. Way back, in 1968/69 Southern actually ran a mixed train thru this line, freight up front and two coaches on the tail end! I will never forget that. Good video.

That subway station being built will serve Amazon's HQ2 campus - which will be in this area.

Nice! Ridden the Crescent through here many a time.

Thanks for the ride along

Awesome video. Love this!

Wonderful! Thank you!

Great video! Like the new opening too!

Very cool that’s pretty rare to get a double header

Love seeing you go all over the country. This is great

Very cool.

Very nice headend view.

The VDI dates from (and was owned by) the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Petersburg; their Crystal City Yard was where Potomac Yards (shopping complex) is now - because I worked in Crystal City in 1987, I remember when the RFP Crystal City Yard was still doing business - on the right side of US 1 betweem Old Town and Crystal City.

Very nice video, beautiful scenery and I really enjoyed the commentary. Im an engineer and former dispatcher in Sweden so it's always interesting to get some insight in operations in different parts of the world. I particularly like that you use regular radio for communications, gives you an idea what goes on around you (and also great for railfans!). We use secure cab radio here, so calls are between you and the dispatcher only. Only emergency can be heard by everyone. I also like that these cab cars offers a "railfan window", it's usually not possible here due to our cabs mostly being "full width".

1:08 Manassas 5:13 Manassas Park 18:51 Burke Centre 23:10 Rolling Road (Skipped) 28:02 Backlick Road (Skipped) 39:32 Alexandria 48:32 Crystal City (Skipped) 55:48 L' Enfant (Skipped) 1:01:28 Washington - Union Station

I lived down there from 1978 to 2001. I remember when the entire area was the RFP freight yards. Caternary came from DC for the Penn freight trains. The big talk was all the development to come once the freight yards were gone. By he way much of the route from Manassas up looks like it's rural and trees but in fact it is now densely overdeveloped. Fairfax county was allowing developments of 30,000 houses at a time surrounding vast office complexes. In 1978 it was all back roads and many were dirt roads. Now it has some of the worst traffic in the US with 6 lane feeder roads going all over the place but you can't go anyplace fast. Many areas have streets that consist of 50 townhouses on each side of a street with zero on street parking. They have a 6 foot lawn in front and an 8 foot yard in back and it is street after street built like that.

Loved your time machine reference to a brace of Southern FP-7s as well as those handsome E-8s on the Crescent, both of which I well remember! Might have been a wicked-hot day, but you were certainly lucky with those dramatic skies, at least for part of your ride. You came right through my neck of the woods! P.S: Should you ever re-edit this, you crossed over Lake Accotink, a popular recreation spot in North Springfield, on a high trestle at 26:00. View is actually a bit more remarkable looking up from the lake as trains cross high above. ;-)

That was something different 🙂

The slowest express train I've ever seen

I hope you could do LA someday.

Absolutely love this video, can you do the fredricksburg line next?

This video has about 1/3rd of VRE's weekday ridership.

Horn sounds similar to trains in Viet Nam railroad videos

Why did you draw the 'What's This?' arrow in Arizona; Wyoming is considerably further northeast ! I wasted some time trying to find out about a volcano in Arizona. It was interesting though. Aarre Peltomaa

Ahhhhhh....wonderful head end shots !! Just think, if this was the fools from SEPTA in Philly, they'd have it roped off so you couldn't do it. Are you going to tell me they aren't NUTS? I love your new Bearcat scanner. It adds a great touch of class and makes for an awesome, interesting production. PLEASE continue to use it for all future productions, onboard and offboard. Again, a million thanks for the scanner and the spectacular head end shots. Just think, if this was side window shots, you'd have an hour looking at trees. By the way, while in D.C., did you ride and video the new streetcar line? Unfortunately, it doesn't go directly in front of Union Station, like the old streetcars did and the new ones should. It's about a block and a half walk out the back of Union Station.

Love your videos, quality is great. Did notice in this video there seemed to be an excessive amount of "Morse Code" sounding rattleings? Would that be from a bracket, if you're using one? If you're hand holding your Cam, you're one of the most rock steady video makers I've seen!

I honestly don't know if it is your new scanner but the audio sounds like a rotary phone dialing like mad! Other than that another great video

RRHG-- you mentioned that you are retired LIRR....when you were working, what was you job? I had an uncle thqt was a brakeman on LIRR, moslty worked at the Long Island City yard.I like hearing you commentery...it's like listening to my relatives that live in 5towns

Nice video! You’ve been all over the place recently. Ever thinking of going to California?

How did you get in the engine for the ride ?

On another clip you referred to Amtrak as "the worst possible service at the lowest possible cost", to which I can relate as a former user of British Railways in the 1960s. Interesting then that they lost out on the contract to run these trains to Keolis. Perhaps bumping up their prices for sub-contract work to try and offset sone of their own operating losses - and bidding too high? Greetings from Australia. Wish I had your opportunities to spend my retirement gallivanting around the country's local railways, but there aren't that many here and the costs are prohibitive for any of the long distance treks.

Any chance you can get rid of that woodpecker you have in your camera ?

Is this the part of the corridor

What kind of horn is that?

0:30 I have no clue where this is

I appreciate that you enjoy these trips and share them with us… but don’t you get bored of seeing peoples backyards? It’s really one of the things stopping me from a long distance train trips.. I get bored from Ronkonkoma to Penn. I took Amtrak from NYP to Route 128 quite a few years ago and was climbing the walls from New Haven up.

Is it true V.R.E. is made up of Chicago Metra Cars?

Why they running slow

What's RFW?

Hi there! I ride this train in all the time, and made my own video! Check it out sometime! Love that ride in from Manassas.