In 37th year, railroad festival still attracting large crowds

APPOMATTOX — The smell of barbecue wafted through the early morning air as an onslaught of more than 100 vehicles — including tractor-trailers, hot-rods and a school bus — paraded through the streets of Appomattox.

The Saturday morning parade was the official kickoff to the 37th Historic Appomattox Railroad Festival, a two-day event now considered a tradition in the town.

As car-pulled floats decked out in red, white and blue streamers motored by, people watched from the sidelines, catching candy and waving at the passengers.

“Main Street is elbow to elbow,” said the festival committee’s co-chair, Roxanne Paulette, on Saturday at the festival. “I think the Web site helped bring people out here.”

The festival’s Web site wasn’t the only new addition this year, she said.

The committee also strove to create a more railroad-centered atmosphere, bringing in exhibits from the Roanoke-based North and Western Historical Society and the O. Winston Link Museum.

“We started looking around to see where we could expose the railroad’s importance in the community,” committee co-chair and Appomattox Tourism Director Will Simmons said.

Later in the day, inside the Appomattox Visitor’s Center, a crowd of youngsters feasted their eyes on a display of train modules set up by the LyNchburg N-Scalers, a modular railroading club.

As the model trains whizzed around the track, Mayor Paul Harvey stood back, observing the spectacle.

“It’s going great,” Harvey said of the festival. “We feel like we’re better organized this year.”

He added that plans were already in the works to put a steam locomotive on display next year.

“It’s a dream, but we’re working on it,” he said.

Along with the railroad exhibits, vendors lined Court and Main streets, selling anything from ornamental hand-painted gourds to funnel cakes.

Dennis Cooper, a regular vendor at the festival, displayed an array of wicker baskets from his woodshop in Farmville.

“I do pretty good here,” he said. “Everybody usually comes and watches the parade and then starts to mill around. I get a lot of people buying pie and casserole baskets to take to church suppers, stuff like that.”

Near Cooper’s tent stood Rock Hill Orchard owner Fred May with more than 40 bushels of red, green and yellow apples. The Amherst farmer said he has made a point to bring his produce to the festival since the early 1980s.

“My wife’s selling at the city market today, but I’m here. It’s something we always do,” he said.

Vendors weren’t the only ones profiting from the large crowds drawn to this year’s festival. The weekend also brought a boost to local business owners whose doors remained open to the 20,000 or so people visiting the town throughout the weekend.

Backstreet Antiques store owner Barbara Caldwell said that the festival has so far brought in more sales for her than it did last year.

“Last year, the economy was bad. I had customers, but people were reluctant to purchase anything. This year I’ve had more purchasers,” she said

A festival committee organizer, Appomattox resident Frances Guill, remembered the town’s very first railroad festival in 1973. The festival originally celebrated the North and Western Railway’s donation of the train depot to Appomattox.

Although the festival has certainly grown since then, Guill said, “It really isn’t that different than when we first started it. We’ve always had music and vendors — just on a smaller scale than it is now.”

And, she added, despite all the changes, the basic purpose of the festival remains the same.

“It’s really a time for the community to bond together.”