Leroy Foster, a 72-year-old traffic officer for Hanover County, is a favorite. Some Ashland residents have become internet celebrities among viewers of the town’s Virtual Railfan YouTube channel. There is something very soothing about that.”Īshland’s cameras recorded the making of a snowman, leading to a popular video. 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. “Who would have known that live chat would create a genuine community?” “We’re like a sociologists’ dream,” Abbott says. Since it was launched in June 2017, Ashland’s Virtual Railfan YouTube channel has had more than 18 million views. 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. With the support of local businesses, cameras went up on two commercial buildings - Hometown Realty and Ashland Meat Co.
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. These are people staying in our hotels, eating in our restaurants.” Train Day 2020 is scheduled for Nov. “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. Then, the founders of Virtual Railfan put up some live train cams on YouTube as an experiment, says Ashland Town Council member Kathy Abbott.Īs 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.
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.Īn 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.īefore 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.
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.
0 kommentar(er)
