(Media General News Service circulated the following story by John Yellig on January 10.)
DILLWYN, Va. — Despite its short-line designation, the Buckingham Branch Railroad will continue running for a long time to come, thanks to an entrepreneurial family who saved the 100-year-old railroad from corporate downsizing.
After a 34-year sales career at CSX Corp., Robert Bryant retired in 1989 and purchased the unprofitable spur from his former employer.
Facing a nationwide trend toward shipping by truck and air rather than by rail, Bryant and his wife, Annie, have managed to keep the mom-and-pop business on track.
The 17-mile-long line runs three days a week, carrying lumber, sand and kyanite ore from Dillwyn to the main CSX line in Strathmore.
Kyanite ore is a heat-resistant stone used in firebricks, spark plugs and cookware.
Bryant’s ability to make the railroad profitable is a testament to his business plan.
“I had been watching it for several years because I knew it was losing money,” he said from the railroad’s depot in sleepy downtown Dillwyn, population 444.
While CSX needed seven employees to run the line, Bryant figured he could do the same job with four, including his wife and himself.
After a year of negotiations, which included garnering the support of existing customers who wanted the service to continue, Bryant bought the line from CSX for $500,000. That price included $24,000 for a 1950s-era locomotive and $2,500 for a caboose.
“It was in scrap condition,” Bryant said of the locomotive. “Everything around here was.”
Getting the line up and running was a collective effort, with friends and family pitching in and working long hours.
“The only indebtedness we have is to the family. We don’t owe outside institutions a nickel.”
Bryant’s father, who worked the line as a conductor, lived to make the first run under the railroad’s new owners.
“He wasn’t one of those people who expressed his feelings a lot, but I think he was pleased,” Bryant’s son, Mark, said.
Annie Bryant taught school during her husband’s railroad career, which took the family from native Buckingham County to Columbia, S.C., Memphis, Tenn., Atlanta and Richmond.
The Bryants’ foray into the railroad business entailed many surprises, including the amount of work required to run the thrice-weekly line.
“There wasn’t time to do anything but railroad stuff,” Annie Bryant said.
Life on the Buckingham Branch smoothed out over the following 14 years. The Bryants have taken less-active roles in its day-to-day operation, passing the wheel to son Mark and a staff of 15.
Mark, an artist who divides his time between Dillwyn and two studios, plans to stay on despite a blossoming career as a painter.
Besides freight, the Buckingham Branch runs several excursion trains in cooperation with the Old Dominion Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, including fall foliage trips and Santa Claus trains.
The Bryants hope such activities broaden the public’s appreciation for rail transport. They were honored recently for their efforts by Virginians for High Speed Rail, a not-for-profit group advocating increased railway usage to alleviate crowded roads.
“There are too many vehicles on the highways,” Robert Bryant said. “We can pull a ton of freight for about one-half of the fuel that a truck uses.
“We have a place and we know what it is.”
(John Yellig is a staff writer at the Daily Progress in Charlottesville.)