It's been a long time since Virginia has had a "proper" tourist railroad, I believe - but it looks like the Virginia Scenic Railway (operated by the Buckingham Branch Railroad) will finally break that dry spell in August. Running trips out of the Staunton, VA Amtrak depot, hopefully this is the start of something great in the state of Virginia:

https://www.virginiascenicrailway.com

I found it difficult to believe that Va did not have a tourist RR, but looking in my Tourist Trains book, there are a number of museums, but this will be the first active RR.

I felt the same way. There's a lot of stuff. Well, checking my directory, I found 10 attractions.
https://railroaddata.com/rrlinks/Touris ... /Virginia/
But only one appears to have any sort of operations, and that was speeder rides at the The Rappahannock Railroad Museum


Of course there is a tourist railroad of sorts in Virginia. Busch Gardens Williamsburg has 3 Crown 4-4-0 3 foot gauge steam locos that haul more traffic than most of us could ever hope for every day of the summer. But it's a park train, so it doesn't count.

There’s a few reasons for this

1. Virginia for whatever reason wasn’t overbuilt in terms of its rail infrastructure compared to most other eastern states. As a result you don’t have a plethora of low use, or even railbanked lines at your disposal. Even for the Atlantic coast: where Delaware, Maryland and northern North Carolina had rail lines serving the beach towns that disappeared or are in extremely low use, Virginia’s coast was always far more industrial with Williamsburg, Newport News and Norfolk.

2. The few lines that are out of service or abandoned, are mostly minor industrial branches, not suitable for making a tourist line. The few exceptions to this are the Virginian’s James District (in the middle of nowhere in southeast Virginia), the Petersburg to Norlina, NC Seaboard line that will eventually see service with Amtrak, and the fabled N&W Abingdon branch, at least that I’m aware of. You don’t have a situation like the former western Maryland mainline in Cumberland for instance where you have former mainline track at your disposal.

3. Virginia isn’t exactly a huge tourist destination anyway. Sure they have tourism but it’s not comparable to other surrounding states: that have either larger cities or better scenery.

4. Virginia is For Lovers® (not foamers)

[quote="Steamguy73"]There’s a few reasons for this

<snip>

2. The few lines that are out of service or abandoned, are mostly minor industrial branches, not suitable for making a tourist line. The few exceptions to this are the Virginian’s James District (in the middle of nowhere in southeast Virginia), the Petersburg to Norlina, NC Seaboard line that will eventually see service with Amtrak, and the fabled N&W Abingdon branch, at least that I’m aware of. You don’t have a situation like the former western Maryland mainline in Cumberland for instance where you have former mainline track at your disposal.

<snip>

I am curious as to what you call the "Virginian's James District" as I have been a life-long Virginian fan, but never once heard that term.

In cases of the N&W's Abingdon Branch, unless an operator had barrels of money handy and ready to spend to keep the line open with it's over 200 bridges, there is no way anyone short of the state with money could have saved it. Over its life it was washed out in many places as it followed creeks and streams most of its mileage.

On the N&W's North Carolina Branch (from near Pulaski to Galax, the story is sort of similar, but not quite the same but the railroad crosses on two very long bridges, which require inspections and effort to keep it suitable for rail traffic, again, not feasible for a smaller tourist operation. Look at Cass Scenic, no major vintage bridges to have to take care of, state backing (for many years) Western Maryland is pretty much the same.

Other branches in Virginia on the N&W at least, are not in major tourist traffic areas. In regards to your comments about Virginia being a tourist dollar location, at least one website I found in 2014:
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-mos ... sm-2014-10
Virginia ranked 6th in the county behind California, Florida, Nevada, Texas and New York.

Best
Ken Miller

Isn't the RTM going to be running short tourist runs on the former Belt line in Roanoke, within the next few years?
Anyone know if any gear would be moving back to park, or staying put due to it being a flood plain? And if the rides would board from the RNK amtrak station, or across the river.

My apologies, I must’ve gotten the name of the James River confused for those portions of the former Virginian: basically east of Lynchburg, which as most people know is the middle of nowhere.

Virginia is already one of the single most populated states in the Union, and it does benefit from having DC and the port cities. But the true heart of Virginia is mostly rural and with few major cities that even present tourism.

If memory serves me, the line is completely separate from the museum grounds - so it won't board at the museum or anywhere near it. At some point last year (or earlier this year), there was a "volunteer day" to help clean up the ROW, that I remember reading about. Since then, however, I've heard precious little in the news or via Google searches about the status of the belt line and potential operations.

That is indeed correct, the Belt Line is totally separate from VMT, but owned by VMT. The Wasena is now city park with a skateboard place set up on the west side where the big power (1218, C&O 1604) were displayed, so it is doubtful that anything can or will be moved back.

The Belt Line has been out of service for at least 10 years now, with a lot of rotting or non-existent ties, trees and brush. There was indeed a clean up about a year ago, but that does not fix missing ties or a bridge that likely needs replacement. If they ever get it running, which at the rate they are going, will be a good while, rides are likely to board at the old VMT site or at property owned by Roanoke Chapter NRHS to the east of there. The Chapter bought the basically useless otherwise property specifically for this some time back, and all it has done is cost the Chapter money on taxes, weed control and boarding up a building the homeless took over. At the present rate, VMT has shown no interest in the line short of the clean up, which did not even bring out very many VMT folks it seems, so I have little faith in seeing anything happen any time soon. The line is virtually a tunnel of overgrowth regardless and is no "scenic" line.

Best
Ken Miller