VRE Clifton Day

I just wanted to share that VRE did a great job on their part of Clifton day which was held just north of Manassas in the town of Clifton, VA. It is the only day of the year that VRE stops in Clifton and they had a great effect on the celebration. They ran back and forth between Downtown Manassas and Rolling Road. They made stops at Rolling Road, Burke Centre, Clifton, Manassas Park (some trains skipped), and Manassas. Its probable that they didn't go to Alexandria because that would involve traveling on CSX territory and NS was great about handling VRE's extras. I road the full length starting at Rolling Road and going down to Manassas and back up to Clifton. After I was done in Clifton I then took it back to Rolling Road. The train traveled at track speed most of the way and had some lengthy dwell times, no more than ten minutes except at major stops. We had F40PH V35 on the North end and RP39-2C on the South end. I can't recall the consist length offhand but it was about 6 or 7 cars. All of the trains were well used, as long as you weren't last in line you could grab a window seat. Clifton had three or four temporary platforms, which were just oversized wood skids with yellow footstools. These were located on the track nearest the caboose (1 Main).

They had Amtrak 51 the WB Cardinal run around our SB train while we were sitting in Clifton. I also caught the NB Lynchburg Regional who did performed the traditional --o- for the crossing followed by a sucession of long blasts through Clifton. The trains stayed reasonably on time, They started running about 5 minutes late about midday due to the regional holding up people crossing the tracks to board.

All in all it was a great event but it was very unadvertised in the railroading perspective. The trains being an integral part (due to scarce parking in Clifton) were heavily used by the throngs of crowds which I was pleased to see.

Davis