The Virginia Midland HO Railroad Blog: Train show in Lynchburg, VA over the weekend

Monday, August 14, 2017

Train show in Lynchburg, VA over the weekend

Got up very early on Saturday and drove down to a yearly train show I attend every year. My oldest son, Cameron also went down with me. It's a smaller show but always turns up so good bargains for me and I do sell a lot of my excess items. While my selling was OK, I did pick up a 65' gondola, a book and a Bachmann 70 tonner painted in the attractive M&ET scheme. I actually ran upon them on my honeymoon in 2004 while passing through Modesto, CA. It was really neat to see 3 70 tonners moving a long string of reefers.

Very well done 70 tonner in M&ET paint

On the way home, I wanted to bypass the unfortunate craziness in Charlottesville and decided to go another way home and see the original Buckingham Branch and photograph the large chip mill they have. I also grabbed some shots of two other types of loaders they have in town. These are both not in operation but would be neat to model.

This looks as if it was a hopper loader at one time. Probably sand trucked in.

A closer view of the loading area

This loader was on the same spur as the possible sand loader. Maybe aggregate?

Loading shoot

The dump end

A very old Y&S boxcar rusts away

The original BB's largest customer and probably newest one: Rock Tenn wood yard.

These Westvaco wood chip hoppers are ready to be loaded.

One full hopper!

This is a massive operation. Look at all the logs stacked in the distance. That's only about fifth of them.

Our final stop was in the town of Orange to see if we could catch a train. No luck on the train, but a great display on the railroad history of the town.