Again this year, the jolly old elf won’t return for what was an annual, sell-out event, “Santa Trains.” Last held in December 2019, and every year before, the event invited children and parents to ride the rails with Santa on the commuter railroad’s Fredericksburg and Manassas lines.
In years past, Santa Train riders would flood VRE’s website to snag free tickets for the trains. Riders routinely claimed all of the vouchers within minutes.
Ann Sang Hyundai is charged with illegal burning, said Prince William County Fire Marshal Matt Smolsky. Hyundai is the new tenant of the building that housed the old Tim’s Rivershore restaurant near Dumfries.
Hyundai is due in court to answer the charge on December 20, Smolsky adds.
At 2:38 p.m., police went to a BB&T bank branch at the Wellington Shopping Center for a robbery report at 10040 Dumfries Road.
A bank employee said the robber demanded money, implied he had a weapon, and fled the scene on foot, a police spokeswoman said. Bank employees never saw a gun, police add.
[Updated 7:30 p.m.] Two major incidents at opposite ends of Stafford County kept fire crews busy.
A dog perished in the fire. Fire crews reported no other injuries, and fire crews did not find working smoke detectors in the home, said county fire and rescue spokeswoman Katie Brady.
Authorities were called to a home on Cynthia’s Place in the England Run neighborhood in Stafford County at 1:41 p.m. Sunday, November 28. They found a woman who had locked herself in a car following an argument with the suspect.
A dispatcher who received a 911 call about the case overheard the two arguing, a sheriff’s spokesman said.
A Prince William County woman faces murder charges in the shooting death of 49-year-old Travis Kelly Deardorff.
On Saturday, November 27, the suspect grabbed a gun from a bedroom and shot her roommate in the lower body following an argument, police said.
Another library in Prince William County will get a makeover.
Bull Run Regional Library will close for six months on Monday, December 13. The renovation will include a new digital media studio equipped for video production, an updated children’s section, a new study room, and new furniture.
Fire crews went to the 1500 block of Cherry Hill Road near Dumfries at 11:17 a.m. today and found multiple brush fires. No one was injured, and the cause of the fire is under investigation, a Prince William County Fire and Rescue spokesman states.
The fires delayed several freight trains in the area. As of 1:30 p.m., trains began traveling through the area again, albeit slower than usual, at 10 mph.
