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Former Ashland Mayor Jim Foley and his granddaughter wave to Amtrak’s Auto Train on Train Day 2019. (Photo courtesy Town of Ashland)
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Viewers can watch construction of an upgraded platform at the Ashland Train Station. (Image courtesy Amtrak/AECOM)
The 19th-century railroad town of Ashland (population 7,600) is on camera 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, making it a YouTube darling around the nation and across the globe.
Trains roll and rumble as townspeople and visitors move in and out of the frame of three video cameras focused on the tracks that run squarely through the middle of Ashland’s historic downtown on the busy Northeast Corridor.
An online community of “Vashlanders” — short for virtual Ashlanders — has sprung up via the town’s Virtual Railfan YouTube channel, prompting some viewers to visit in person.
Before Ashland and its trains appeared on YouTube, they were seen on the Virtual Railfan website, a subscription service with millions of views monthly via its cameras at 47 train locations in 22 states and four countries. Then, the founders of Virtual Railfan put up some live train cams on YouTube as an experiment, says Ashland Town Council member Kathy Abbott.
“Well, it just took off,” she says.
As a sign of the cameras’ impact on tourism, Abbott points to growing attendance at Train Day, the annual event when Ashland celebrates its railroad heritage.
“On Train Day in 2018, we had maybe a dozen of our rail fans come to Ashland,” says Abbott, a former network news producer who began as a Virtual Railfan viewer and is now operations manager of the organization. “Last year, we had well over 100. These are people staying in our hotels, eating in our restaurants.” Train Day 2020 is scheduled for Nov. 7.
Suzanne Hemingway, owner of Tiny Tim’s Trains & Toys in Ashland, had heard about Virtual Railfan in 2015 and encouraged the company to put cameras in Ashland, where scores of trains are on the tracks every day. With the support of local businesses, cameras went up on two commercial buildings — Hometown Realty and Ashland Meat Co. at Cross Brothers — in 2017. Soon afterward, a third camera, which can zoom in on street scenes and people along the tracks, was installed on Ashland’s picturesque 1920s-era railroad station, which also serves as a regional visitor center.
Since it was launched in June 2017, Ashland’s Virtual Railfan YouTube channel has had more than 18 million views.
“We’re like a sociologists’ dream,” Abbott says. “Who would have known that live chat would create a genuine community?”
Why have so many rail fans made viewing Ashland’s trains and people a part of their day? Abbott has a theory: “There’s a regular cast of characters, and there’s a predictability of events. There is something very soothing about that.”
Ashland’s cameras recorded the making of a snowman, leading to a popular video. (Image via Virtual Railfan/YouTube)
Some Ashland residents have become internet celebrities among viewers of the town’s Virtual Railfan YouTube channel.
Leroy Foster, a 72-year-old traffic officer for Hanover County, is a favorite. When he reports to duty during the school year for his morning and afternoon shifts to flag county school buses across the busy tracks, viewership tends to spike.
Another highlight occurred when a young bear raced a train down the tracks in an early morning jaunt, recalls Abbott. And when two teenage girls built a snowman with family members after a surprise snowfall a few years ago, Abbott made a video of the moment, which to date has had close to 60,000 views.
At any given time, 200 or more followers may be watching the Ashland cameras on YouTube. As a result, viewers from Germany, England, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, along with dozens of states, have made Ashland a destination, Abbott says.
“I have people from different places come up and shake my hand and know my name,” Foster says. “They come from everywhere.”
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