This past weekend I was able to take a nice road trip in Southern VA. While in Emporia, VA I drove along a rail line that has not been used in a long time. It was rusty and a lot of brush grown between the rails. When I got home and checked goodle maps I found something very interesting. The line is intact from Emporia to Suffolk, but all the industries along the route have pulled up thier tracks and the crossing over CSX in Emporia has removed the diamond. Through discussions with a friend, I think this is the old Atlantic and Danville. Does anyone have any information on this line? When did NS lease it? When did it stop being used? By the look of it, I’d say at least ten years. My friend says it might not have been used since the 80s. It amazes me that the rails are still there.
My last observation of the A&D trackage in Emporia was about 8 years ago. Back then the rails west of town looked recently used.
A Google Earth tour of the line shows the large Vulcan Materials quarry west of Emporia looking inactive and it would be a good guess that the quarry represented all the traffic on the line at the time.
I grew up near the A&D, near Danville and saw the line torn out back in the late 1970 early 1980s. I was surprised to see the A&D still intact in Emporia, thinking it had all been pulled out when the segment from Danville to South Hill that I was familiar with was done.
Google is your friend. Wikipedia entry about the A&D, and several sites with lots of NF&D info and some pics.
FROM STB WEBSITE (Docket No. AB 290 (Sub-No. 362X)…2014) … What is still out there is mothballed (Discontinuance of Service)
BACKGROUND
The Line is part of a stub-ended branch line NSR refers to as the Franklin District, which originally was built as a through route from the Virginia Tidewater area to Danville, Va. According to NSR, the Line was built by the Atlantic & Danville Railway in the 1800s and was leased by the Southern Railway Company, a NSR predecessor, until 1949, at which time it returned to independent operation. The Norfolk & Western Railway Company, another NSR predecessor, acquired the Line in the 1960s and formed the Norfolk, Franklin & Danville Railway Company (NFDR) to operate it. Before being absorbed into NSR in 1983, NFDR had gradually stopped using the portion of the Line west of Edgerton, which had become the westernmost extension of NSR’s Franklin District and had devolved from a secondary trunk line to a branch line relying on local traffic. Recently, the Board granted an exemption to NSR to discontinue service over a 53.2-mile portion of the Franklin District to the west of the line at at issue, extending from milepost FD 37.0 near Franklin, to the end of the line at milepost FD 90.2 at Edgerton (western segment).
NSR argues that the Line is a burden on NSR and interstate commerce because the potential annual revenue that the Line’s remaining shippers could generate would be heavily outweighed by the costs of maintaining and operating it. NSR claims a base year normalized maintenance cost of $262,455 ($14,745 per track mile) and projects a forecast year normalized maintenance cost of $266,546 ($14,974 per track mile), due to the deteriorated condi
Been their before around 1990 when i worked for Builders Transport thought i heard somewhere that the plant closed.
For reference see:
The Atlantic And Danville Railway Company - The Railroad Of Southside Virginia by William E. Griffin Jr. copyright 1987
and also: The Atlantic And Danville Railway Company - The Railroad Of Southside Virginia Revised and Expanded Second Edition also by William E. Griffin Jr. copyright 2006.