OTOL Blue Ridge Roanoke Excursion 2021: Homepage

OTOL Blue Ridge Roanoke Excursion 2021 was a 2-day round trip between Northeastern cities and Roanoke, VA on Amtrak's Northeast Regional service. The goal was to visit Roanoke and view the Blue Ridge Mountains. For many, the segment between Lynchburg and Roanoke was new trackage for them. For all of those who have been at our Fests since we started the comtemporary series of these events since 2001, this was the 51st one that I have put together and carried out.

This trip was our group's first travel together since the COVID-19 pandemic struck. As such this trip was small and simple for us, and also took into consideration that some might not yet have been comfortable in restaurants together (the train schedule means we obtained food from the cafe car). Furthermore, much rail transit and commuter rail was not yet be back to full frequency, so we saved those longer trips to places that have transit and commuter for a later time.