I worked some of the NS trips in the late '80's/early '90's for the Washington Joint Trip Committee (DC and Potomac NRHS, and Chesapeake Div. RRE), but being a volunteer entailed arriving before dawn and departing the facility well after sunset, so I really didn't have much of a frame of reference as to where the facility was. If you look at the photo from the middle link of 4501 at the engine facility with the George Washington Masonic Memorial in the background, that will give you a clue as to where the yard was. King St. station sits pretty much directly in front of the Memorial, and it looks like the facility would have been railroad North of the station several hundred yards on the East side of the tracks. Currently, that location has a number of office buildings on it. If you look at them from the track side, one of the buildings houses the headquarters of an organization called something like the "Society of Crows" (retired intelligence officers). I think that they changed the sign on the building several years ago to just "SOC" or something like that, with a crow logo.

I had been told that part of the rest of the Southern yard was located North of Slater's lane (where the NS spur to the Alexandria power plant comes off the RF&P sub), and is now a very expensive townhome/condo development.

Jeff,

The Southern Railway Historical Association held its 1991 convention in Alexandria. As a prelude, the March-April 1991 issue of SRHA's TIES Magazine featured the Southern's facilities at Alexandria including a basic diagram illustrating the general layout there as well as much more information you would find of interest. Back issues of TIES are available from the SRHA, visit their website at http://www.srha.net.

Alan Maples

Here's a 1984 topo map of the area in question:

http://msrmaps.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=12& ... andria|va|

RE: Topo Maps (Online, Historic, and Printed)
If you want to help keep a WW&F volunteer and RYPN reader employed, you may want to use:
http://www.mytopo.com
We offer all of those services, etc... and our maps (generally) look better.

Sure, how about 1945 & 1885:
http://historical.mytopo.com/quadlist.cfm?stateabr=VA&town=Alexandria

Unfortunately, we don't offer the historic maps for general purchase. However, if you give us a call we can often put something custom together. Be sure to mention my name (Ed Lecuyer) if you call.

Jeff;

I can't take credit for knowing this first-hand, it came up recently in another forum I'm on, but I think what you're looking at in that photo is an old Fruit Growers Express facility in Alexandria, which was located in that vicinity. My understanding is that FGE either built or assembled cars at that facility.

I think Paul is correct about that being an FGEX facility. I vaguely recall that it was still there when I moved to Northern Virginia in 1974.

I was asked to add a comment to this thread by nationally known photographer/author Alex Mayes, who sometimes follows this board. Alex is a native of the area and was very familiar with the SR facility...

"The Southern Railway’s Alexandria shops were located on Holland Lane, off Duke Street/Route 236. We used to go there a LOT in the late seventies/early eighties, just to poke around inside the diesel shop building, where SR kept their Ks-1 class 2-8-0 number 722 during the winter months. Jim Bistline’s RPO was stored there, as well as an old SR caboose. You could roam around anywhere on their property, railfans were always welcomed by SR employees there. Just beyond the diesel shop building was an ex-SR roundhouse, which the SR leased to a lumber company. It was in pretty rough shape back then."

The Northern VA Model RR club also was located in an old yard office in the Alexandria Yard. The club was there until around 1971 or so. The building was loaned to the club, with the RR retaining ownership.

The building was located right off of Holland lane on the right side just before the round house.

I visited the yard many times up until the early 80's and was always welcomed.

Dave J.

Someone asked about the Fruit Growers Express facility. Here is a photo that I took during a Model RR fan trip; circa 1968.

Thanks Jeff. I took it with my Kodak instamatic when I was 11 years old. I remember going there but don't remember the details of what was on the tour. But it is my understanding that they did repair and new construction there. This was not a loading facility. I have also heard that they built cabooses on contract work, maybe for SCL.

Dave J.

FGEX was a fairly substantial supplier of new cars, particularly for Southern Railway. They did do a fair number of cabooses (cabeese?) including the final few bay windows for Southern, and I'm thinking Chessie as well.

ETA

The power plant was served by Southern. If you go way back to the Orange and Alexandria the line went through the old Duke Street yard and headed straight for the Potomac River. It actually went through a short tunnel before reaching the waterfront. At the waterfront it ran upstream through the torpedo factory and warehouse areas to the the current location of the powerplant. As it does today it went past the power plant to the area of Potomac Yard. I believe the line actually continued to Bluemont on what was at one time a Southern Railway branch and later the Washington and Old Dominion. Of course at the time of abandonment the W&OD crossed Pot yard on a long viaduct.

The waterfront line was abandoned and at some point in time the Southern used trackage rights over RF&P to get to the powerplant. It still uses those rights, now over CSX, to get to the last waterfront customer which is a warehouse near the power plant.

Out of sight to the right of the photo was the Washington Division office building and later the Research and Test Department. A number of the new innovations in freight cars were often either at the Test Department or in the Duke Street yard. I seem to remember one of the old roundhouses was still standing in the sixties and may have been destroyed in a fire. Also a wye was built to the South of the yard so that it would not be necessary to take the excursion trains to Manassas to turn it around. I can't remember if this was done before, or after, the 1976 excursions. In the picture it looks like the tail track is already gone

I grew up in Arlington and remember the W&OD as well as the old Pot yard. A neighbor belonged to the Northern Virginia Model Railroad Club when it was located in Alexandria. On Sunday's we would drive down to Alexandria and work on the layout. In the late 60s and up to 1976 I spent a great deal of time in the Duke Street yard. I also rode Washington Chpater excursions to Straburg behind the 750 and 722 and down to Ft Eustis to ride behind the Army 2-8-0s. And then there was the Southern's BiCentennial excursions of 1976. Over the summer of 1976 I transfered from Randolph Macon College (got to watch the old Auto Train going through Ashland every day) to UT Chattanooga to avoid a two year foreign language requirement and rode the bus out to TVRM the first weekend I was there, met Paul Merriman and the rest is history.

Almost ten years ago I attended my 30th High School reunion at a hotel across from the Alexandria station and found myself looking southward out the picture window across Duke Street. I could see the entrance to the office complex that NS had developed on the site of the yard and there was nothing that would tell you there was ever a yard there, or the original line of the Orange and Alexandria either. How things have changed.

Tim Andrews
Chattanooga, TN