When I accepted my husband's suggestion that I take the train home from Newport News , I thought I was being foolishly self-indulgent. Perhaps, I was, but it turned out to be a delightful day.
A few days earlier, I had gone down to Tidewater with him on a business trip. Now, it was time to go home. We had our car. There was no need to take the train. But I like riding trains, and he knew I was overdue for a trip. Besides, it wouldn't be expensive for just a few hours in coach.
He dropped me off at the Amtrak station in Newport News and set out on his way in the car. After all, he wanted to make sure he was on time to meet me in Fredericksburg when the train arrived. Presently, the train was moved to the station from its overnight parking accommodations, and I was allowed to board.
We all were allowed to board. There were a great many passengers that day. After all, Spring Break was winding down, and everyone who had been at Virginia Beach was heading home. I worried that the train would be so full that it wouldn't be a relaxing trip. I need not have worried. It was delightful!
Little by little, the coastal landscape gave rise to dense pine trees, clay soil, and gently rolling hills. Soon, we reached Williamsburg.
Yes, the one you've heard about, Colonial Williamsburg. Along with Jamestown, it was settled in 1607 as the two first English settlements in what would become the United States. They are celebrating their quadcentennial this year. Everyone in Virginia has license plates on their cars that give the dates "1607-2007." Even the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester is celebrating with the theme "Virginia Blooms in History." It's the 80th year for the Festival, which will be held the first week in May.
I had been to Williamsburg on several occasions. Even so, pangs of desire to get off and play tourist tugged at my heart. I was somehow able to resist them. I don't know how when, just a few blocks away, sat one of Marcel Dusaulniers' Death by Chocolate cakes. The well-known chocolatier owns The Trellis restaurant there. Just across the street is a shop where I could spend a king's ransom if my oil well would just come in. The safety of my bank account was assured when the engineer gave two toots on the locomotive's horn and released the brakes.
As the train moved toward Richmond, we paralleled, but did not see, the James River. There sit the centuries-old mansions of the earliest tobacco planters. We are talking about high society in seventeenth-through-nineteenth century Virginia. We were entering the Piedmont.
Soon, the train, emerged from the pine trees and into Richmond. It rolled past the airport and rounded the bend onto the north-south CSX (formerly Chessie and Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad) tracks.
Richmond is the capital city of Virginia and the former capital city of the Confederate States of America. It originally was settled in 1607 by settlers from Jamestown, who followed the James River to its last navigational point. It was not officially established as a city until 1737.
William Byrd, II named the city after the town in England, because the view of the James River in Richmond, Virginia is strikingly similar to the view of the Thames River from Richmond, England.
Interestingly, towns named Richmond in states west of Virginia – e.g., Richmond, Indiana – were named after the town in Virginia, reflecting the origin of those who made the westward migration.
Here, the flatter, coastal land gives rise to the hills. Now, I started seeing the narrow, winding, hillside lanes that seem to mark Virginia communities. Many of those lanes – where once, I could imagine George Washington had ridden his horse – are being straightened out, graded down, and converted into four-lane commuter routes. Sad.
Patrick Henry made his famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech in Richmond (1775), and Thomas Jefferson wrote his treatise for religious freedom in Virginia there (1779). Thomas Jefferson also designed the capitol building, a Greek Revival structure featuring a tall pediment and many columns.
Although a major legal and financial center, Richmond is marked by old, red-brick factories that resemble northern cities more than southern ones. It is also a major rail center, for it is where the various area railroads converge before going in their separate directions. As too often happened when passenger rail travel left private ownership and was taken over by Amtrak (1971), its architecturally remarkable station was abandoned. Today, that building has been restored and serves as a museum.
Of note, Richmond is known by the locals as “RVA” (for Richmond, VA), “RIC” (its airport identifier), or “The 804” (its telephone area code).
Far be it from me to criticize anything about Virginia. I love the commonwealth as though it were my own. Still, like all places, it has one or two peculiarities. One is that cities are organized independently of their surrounding counties. In Virginia, "ne'er the twain shall meet," as it were, for those who live in town deride those who live in the county. "Are you city or county?" is a question that makes me bristle to this day.
And, so, as the train left Richmond, it entered Henrico County, paralleling Route 1 and I-95, those traffic-ridden highways that run from the Canadian border in Maine to the southern tip of Florida. The former was formalized under the Federal Highway Act of 1916, while the latter was constructed under the Eisenhower Interstate Highway Program of the 1950s.
Soon, we reached the quaint community of Ashland, where the street, sidewalk, and train track parallel each other so closely that it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins, except that the rails protrude above the surface of the other two. A railfan photographed a Baltimore & Ohio Electromotive Division E-8 locomotive at Ashland on the last day of the B&O's passenger service in 1971. As far as the appearance of Ashland goes, the picture may as well have been taken yesterday. No one would guess that that the sleepy railroad town is only a stone's throw from the hustle and bustle of Richmond.
Also in Ashland is Randolph-Macon College. The privately owned liberal arts-and-sciences school was established by the Methodists in 1830 and features red-brick buildings in Victorian and Gothic Revival designs. It, too, parallels the railroad track, bringing to mind those days gone by when students arrived and departed by train. Of course, some still do, although these days, most drive their own cars.
On up the tracks a bit, the train passes Kings Dominion. This is an amusement park with sky-high rides and a water park that brings out high-school and college "kids" as soon as the park opens its gates in the spring. The admission fee is steep, but that's okay, because a regional grocery chain offers discounted tickets.
Finally, the train reaches Fredericksburg and comes to a stop at the former Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac (RF&P) Railroad station. Now, the station serves Amtrak and the Virginia Railway Express.
Fredericksburg was settled 1671, although it wasn't incorporated as a town until 1781 or as a city until 1879, after the Civil War. George Washington was born nearby, in Wakefield, and grew up at Ferry Farm. In the Battle of Fredericksburg (1862), Robert E. Lee's small Confederate army defeated Ambrose Burnside's Union forces in one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.
The railroad tracks are elevated here, so after leaving the train, I walked down the steps and to the front of the station. It has been restored and now houses a delightful restaurant, Claiborne's. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed having lunch there. All too soon, however, we were forced to draw ourselves away, climb into our car, and wind our way through the narrow, colonial streets toward home in Manassas.
About the clients and escorts who once were part of Professional Escorts of Marin County, California. The timeframe was from 1974 until 1990.
You will enjoy the easy to read book that gives a glimpse into escorting. Enjoy the read.
