military, gone off to college, relocated to new jobs — and high on the list of prior- ities was finding the nearest hot spots. I was assigned to the U.S.S. Trenton (LPD-14), a 450-foot long amphibious ship with a crew of 400 capable of launching attack boats and helicopters from its aft end and carrying an attach- ment of 400 Marines. After meeting my ship at the Fleet Training Command in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and getting my “sea legs” going through Hurricane Emily in the Bermuda Triangle, we docked at the Amphibious Base in Lit- tle Creek, Va., just east of Norfolk. The Eastern Shore Railroad divides
the base in half to access its barge ter- minal. The barges shipped rail cars across Chesapeake Bay to Eastern Shore’s main line at Cape Charles, Va.,
on the Delmarva Peninsula. South of Little Creek, Eastern Shore assumes the character of a terminal line. Its track runs five miles to Norfolk where it interchanges with the Norfolk South- ern and the Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line at Portlock Yard; NPBL inter- changes with the rest of the carriers which entered Hampton Roads. An interesting double-crossover was
used to access the barge apron at Little Creek. Though I saw power in the yard and cars on the barge, sadly I never got to see them loading or unloading it. Eastern Shore’s power was typical short line fare: a rebuilt blue GP7 that looked like it had its short hood lopped off in someone’s garage, and a little green Alco T6. Daniel Harcourt, an en- gineer who worked on Eastern Shore in
OPPOSITE: A U.S. Navy 44-tonner rests at the docks in Norfolk, Va., with the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy making an impressive backdrop. Photo taken with permission.
LEFT: One of
Eastern Shore’s rebuilt geeps rests at Little Creek while a jet makes its final approach to Norfolk’s Naval Air Station. BELOW: A CSX train with Chessie power has left Fulton Yard, has crossed the James River Bridge, and is on its way to the Piedmont Subdivision on August 20, 1988.
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