If You Build It They Will Come
Virginia’s State-Supported Intercity Passenger Lines Generate Record Ridership, Feds Green Light New Bridge to Double Capacity
Suppose you wanted to travel by train from New York to the Tidewater Virginia region in the years that preceded formation of Amtrak. You basically had two choices: a New York – Norfolk sleeping car line that was handled by four different trains or changing trains in Washington and, again, in Richmond or Petersburg, VA, with a transfer between stations thrown in. An adventure only a diehard mileage collector could love.
Getting to Roanoke, the largest city in the western part of the state, wasn’t much more convenient. Until the mid-1960s, you had three daily departures in each direction but all required coach passengers to change trains in Washington.
The railroads that ran north-south, i.e., Seaboard Coast Line and Southern, treated Virginia as a pass-through state. Their passenger operations were oriented toward bringing travelers to and from places like Miami, New Orleans, and Memphis. The east-west carriers, i.e., Chesapeake & Ohio and Norfolk & Western, concentrated on the Tidewater / Washington – Midwest markets. Tidewater – Northeast was an afterthought.
Thanks to the state’s active support for passenger rail, starting in 2009, travelers today have many more choices. In addition to two daily Amtrak round trips to Newport News that predate this initiative, you can choose from three weekday and two weekend departures to Norfolk, a city that prior to 2013 had gone without passenger service for 35 years.
The state far from finished. In 2026, it plans to add a second Richmond train and a third Newport News train.
In addition, Virginia funds two round trips to Roanoke and a daily round trip that terminates at the restored Main Street Station in downtown Richmond. Best of all, no transfer is required at Washington Union Station. These trains run through to/from New York, Boston, and other Northeast Corridor cities.
Ridership figures show travelers are flocking to the rails in Virginia. For FY 2023, ended June 30, state-sponsored Virginia routes carried a combined 1.26 million passengers; in July 2023 125,488 people rode these trains, a 14 percent year-over-year increase.
The state is far from finished. In 2026, it plans to add a second Richmond train and a third Newport News train. It also plans to extend Roanoke service 28 miles west to serve communities in the New River Valley. By 2030 it plans to offer three additional Richmond – Washington round trips, which would result in near-hourly service on this busy corridor.
These new trains are part of a service plan that falls under the umbrella of Transforming Rail in Virginia (TRV), a $3.7 billion program intended to change the future of rail transportation in the state by:
· acquiring rights of way,
· expanding rail capacity, and
· reworking passenger and freight operations to improve reliability and increase service.
TRV’s service plan would increase the number of Amtrak trains that serve the state by one third, from 15 to 20. The service plan for regional carrier Virginia Railway Express, which shares track with Amtrak, would add four trains on the Manassas line, a 50 percent increase, and six trains on the Fredericksburg line, a 75 percent gain.
In 2019, the Virginia Department of Transportation reached an agreement with CSX to acquire 384 miles of CSX right-of-way and 223 miles of track in corridors parallel to Interstates 95, 64, and 85 for $525 million. The deal, which closed in 2021, gave the state half of the CSX right-of-way between Washington, DC, and Petersburg, VA, all of the CSX ROW between Petersburg and Ridgeway, NC, (currently out of service), and nearly all of the ROW between Roswell and Clifton Forge, VA.
Also, in 2021 Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced an agreement with Norfolk Southern to purchase 28 miles of ROW from the Salem Crossovers to Christiansburg. The year before, the Virginia General Assembly created the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority (VPRA), an independent authority charged with managing, funding, and growing passenger rail service in the state.
Several capital projects to increase the state’s rail capacity and reliability are in the pipeline. The centerpiece is a passenger-only rail bridge over the Potomac River parallel to Long Bridge, which currently is the only crossing in the District of Columbia used by railroads.
The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation was just awarded a $729 million federal grant through the US Department of Transportation’s Federal-State Partnership Program for Interstate Rail. It will be applied toward final design and construction.
The current bridge, which is double tracked, was built in 1904. During peak periods it is at 98 percent capacity. Currently, this presents a major obstacle to increasing passenger service. The new bridge will double rail capacity, which is necessary to expand service in the Washington-Richmond corridor.
“Long Bridge is like the skinny piece in the hourglass…the connection between the Northeast and Southeast,” said Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine at an event to publicly announce the new funding. “There’s nothing that can really happen in terms of growing our rail usage, both for passenger and freight, if you don’t deal with Long Bridge.”
When the new bridge opens in 2030, it will be used exclusively by passenger railroads, namely Amtrak, VRE, and, possibly, MARC. Long Bridge, which CSX owns, will become freight only.
The Potomac crossing project accounts for $2.3 billion of TRV’s total cost. In addition to the new bridge over the Potomac, it includes a new span over Washington Channel and additional track near Maine Avenue.
The $405 million Franconia-Springfield Bypass Project, another project currently in development, will expand capacity and reduce conflicts with other trains. A flying crossover south of the Franconia-Springfield station and nearly a mile long will enable trains to access passenger tracks on the west side of the corridor.
This will keep Richmond line and Manassas line trains from getting in each other’s way. In September, the Federal Railroad Administration awarded a $100 million Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement (CRISI) grant for the project’s final design and construction.
Other projects along the I-95 corridor include a fourth track between Arlington and Alexandria and six miles of third track between Franconia and Lorton. When completed, the entire stretch between Alexandria and Lorton will have a three-track mainline. Additional third track segments are to be built near Woodbridge, Brooke, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, Milford, and Hanover.
In the New River Valley, VPRA will improve the current rail infrastructure to support passenger service, including track and signal upgrades and a station platform at a yet-to-be-designated location. The New River Valley Passenger Rail Station Authority will be responsible for constructing the station building.
Currently the project is in the environmental review and preliminary engineering stage. A ridership study of the New River Valley conducted by DRPT in 2020 estimated between 77,300 and 87,100 passengers a year would use the service, based on two daily departures and arrivals.
Lastly, Virgnia and North Carolina are collaborating to reopen the former CSX S-Line as a “high performance” passenger route between Richmond and Raleigh. The more direct route would cut trip time between the two cities by 90 minutes and avoid freight train interference.
Virginia has yet to fully fund its section of the route. However, the North Carolina Department of Transportation received a $1 billion Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Rail grant announced in November. In 2022, US DOT awarded $58 million to VPRA and NCDOT for preliminary planning and engineering on the 162-mile S-Line.
North Carolina will use the proceeds to bring the segment between Raleigh and Wake Forest, NC, up to passenger train standards with a 110 mph top speed. Its Charlotte – Raleigh Piedmont trains will be extended to Wake Forest as an interim step until the line opens to Richmond.
Proposals from Virginia and North Carolina for additional rail line have received federal support in the form of $500,000 Corridor Identification and Development Program grants. They will be used to create service development plans, a precursor to additional federal funding.
Virginia wants to evaluate a line extension from Roanoke to Bristol and a new route from Newport News to the New River Valley via Charlottesville. In addition, Amtrak received an award to create a service development plan to increase frequency of the New York – Chicago “Cardinal,” which runs through the state, from tri-weekly to daily.
North Carolina received $500,000 grants to produce service development plans for seven routes:
· A high-speed line between Charlotte and Atlanta,
· New convention rail routes from: Raleigh to Winston-Salem, Wilmington, and Fayetteville; Charlotte to Kings Mountain, and Salisbury to Asheville, and
· Enhanced service on the existing Charlotte – Washington route.
Undoubtedly there will be a long lead time before these services come to fruition, if at all. However, I am encouraged by the federal government and states like Virginia and North Carolina recognizing the important roles passenger rail can play in their transportation systems and their willingness to invest in it. Hopefully that support will continue to grow regardless of which way the political winds blow.
A Virginia Treat From Rural Retreat
I do not celebrate Christmas but I have a Christmas tradition besides going to a Chinese restaurant and seeing a movie. Every Christmas Eve I listen to a stirring recording made in Rural Retreat, VA, in 1957 by O. Winston Link. A Norfolk & Western J Class 4-8-4 steam locomotive leads Train 42, the northbound Pelican, in and out of the station as church bells play Christmas carols.
Listen to it here:
Merry Christmas to all who observe and Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all of us.