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New Virginia Train Shows What’s Possible With Cooperation
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Yesterday’s Washington-Lynchburg inaugural special, in advance of revenue service starting today, follows 2-1/2 years of hard work and cooperation by state, local, Norfolk Southern and Amtrak officials. Gov. Tim Kaine (D) gets a huge share of the credit, another reminder of the critical importance of having a governor who believes in passenger trains. Hailing Forbes’ ranking of Virginia as “Best State to do Business” for the fourth consecutive year, Kaine said “the expanded service will support economic growth and benefit the environment by taking more cars off the road, improving air quality, and saving fuel.”
Kaine spoke at Charlottesville and Lynchburg [video]. At both stations he followed his father-in-law—former Governor (and former Amtrak Board Member) Linwood Holton (R), the man who 2-1/2 years ago told the Virginia Transportation Board, “You can do this.” Virigina Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer spoke at the earlier stations. There were impressive crowds at all six Virginia stations.
Reflecting the increasingly positive relationship between Amtrak and host railroads, NS Chairman & President Wick Moorman and Amtrak President & CEO Joe Boardman spoke at all the stations. Moorman said, “We’re delighted to partner with Amtrak and their fine team. Amtrak and NS have conversations, we have some tough conversations, but we recognize at the end of the day that it’s a partnership. Norfolk Southern is proud to have worked closely with the Commonwealth and Amtrak to provide this new service.”
Boardman spoke in a similar vein, complimenting NS on a dramatic improvement in their dispatching of Amtrak trains.
The new service is strongly supported by on-line chambers of commerce which long have been working together to create travel products based on train travel. The train is viewed by many as the first step in extension of service to Roanoke and Bristol, the “Trans-Dominion Express,” something that the governor referred to.
The train also should help Amtrak’s Crescent as many shorter distance travelers shift to the new train, freeing up space for more longer trips on the Crescent. The platform was lengthened at Lynchburg which means Crescent won’t have to double-stop there anymore. Lynchburg station costs now are shared among two trains rather than shouldered by Crescent alone, and Crescent’s share of costs at the other jointly served stations will decline. And Crescent should benefit from the added flexibility that makes train travel more practical for more people, and the greater visibility that Crescent gets from people drawn to the stations by the new train. As for example, “Oh, a trip to Atlanta by train? Maybe I’ll try that next time.”
Click “Read More” to see photos of the inaugural run.
—Ross Capon
Posted by NARP
Tags: amtrak, charlottesville, inaugural, joseph boardman, lynchburg, new train, northeast regional, passenger train, tim kaine, virginia, wick moorman,Flag Stops: If you build it…
Monday, December 20, 2010
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Transportation chief strongly defends train investment. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition on Saturday (click for audio and transcript) to forcefully respond to growing criticism of the Obama Administration’s approach toward developing faster and more frequent train service in selected corridors through grants to states. He tells host Scott Simon that new Chicago-Dubuque and Chicago-Quad Cities lines should be seen as initial segments for service that will extend to the Twin Cities and Omaha, respectively. “If you build it, if you make it comfortable, if you make it so you can afford it, and get there in a timely way, I believe this is what Americans want,” the Secretary concludes.
LaHood followed the radio appearance with a guest column in Sunday’s Orlando Sentinel, arguing that “we can no longer rely exclusively on roads as a strategy for economic growth over the long term.” Americans in 50 years will see a national passenger train network as indespensible, LaHood posits, the way Interstate highways are currently viewed. He points to states where construction on upgraded track has begun or will begin next year, linking significant short-term service improvements to a longer-term vision for a “national high-speed rail network.”
The State of Virginia announced a landmark agreement with Norfolk Southern Railway to bring extended Amtrak Northeast Regional trains from Richmond directly into Norfolk via Petersburg, using the former Norfolk and Western line that currently hosts heavy container traffic the Port of Norfolk. Federal and state funds will be put to “speedy” work starting in 2011 to bring the track up to passenger-train standards, allowing for a 79-mph top speed. Look for more about this in this week’s Hotline News.
In other news from the Old Dominion, Gov. Bob McDonnell, trying to close the state’s budget gap, proposed eliminating the Virginia Rail Advisory Board. By giving all intercity and commuter rail stakeholders (including passenger advocacy groups) a forum for dialogue, the Advisory Board’s existence has played no small part in putting Virginia ahead of most states in terms of the development of its passenger train network (witness the smashing success of year-old Amtrak service between Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Washington, and Northeast Corridor points). NARP member Dan Peacock defends the Advisory Board in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post.
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The City of Birmingham, AL, is moving forward with an attractive design for a new intercity rail and bus depot to replace the current not-so-attractive facility located underneath the tracks. The modern, airy building, to be located on Morris Avenue between 16th and 19th Streets, will be able to accommodate two passenger trains at the platform simultaneously, as well as Greyhound and city buses, taxis, and a shuttle bus to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. Birmingham currently sees only two daily Amtrak trains—the north- and southbound Crescent between New York and New Orleans—but should see more in the future.
Finally, a personal anecdote that illustrates the importance of having travel choices. My mother and I traveled from Washington DC this past weekend to visit three attractions in north-central New Jersey. Since the destinations were fairly spread-apart and one was not transit accessible, we rented a car (which also wound up being less expensive than a round-trip Amtrak ticket to Newark). The car worked well for touring places that aren’t located near passenger train routes (we returned via a scenic road that hugged the Delaware River), but had we taken the train to Newark and rented a car there, we would have saved about two hours of travel time and avoided paying for gas and rather hefty tolls. So, in the end, the train may have cost roughly the same or less than the rental car, even with the high Northeast Corridor fares.
A safe and joyous holiday season and best wishes for the new year from all of us at NARP!
—Malcolm Kenton
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: amtrak station, birmingham, bob mcdonnell, high-speed rail, interstate highways, norfolk southern, npr, orlando sentinel, passenger trains, rail advisory board, ray lahood, travel choices, us dot, virginia, weekend edition,Making Tracks in the Old Dominion
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Winter 2011 issue of the quarterly newsletter of the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons (VARP), On Track, is an encouraging read. On Track is a fine example of the product of dedicated and knowledgable volunteer labor. While it is not published as frequently as the newsletters of other state rail passengers’ associations, it is very thorough in covering developments in freight, intercity passenger, commuter and transit rail in Virginia.
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The Winter issue reports that the opening of Norfolk’s light-rail line, The Tide, is being further delayed. It was slated to open this month, but operator Hampton Roads Transit is still waiting to receive new safety equipment that will then need to be installed. The first segment of the line is complete, light rail vehicles have been delivered, and test trains have already been running. New commercial and residential development has already begun to spring up along the line, like the apartment building in the photo to the right.
The Tide is poised to become a model for a local rail service that complements and extends the reach of intercity passenger rail service, as envisioned in the Regional Transit Plan for Hampton Roads. It will share a downtown Norfolk depot with Amtrak once the state of Virginia succeeds in its effort to extend a Northeast Regional train to Norfolk via Petersburg and Suffolk over Norfolk Southern (ex-Norfolk and Western) rails. The realization of planned extensions will more effectively bond the Tidewater region with greater Richmond and the Northeast Corridor, as well as the national rail network.
The Tide will be extended east to Virginia Beach and west to the Norfolk Naval Station by 2025. By 2035, The Tide is planned to connect with high-speed ferries to Hampton and Newport News from the Naval Station, with streetcars linking The Tide to Chesapeake and Portsmouth. Longer-term, a tunnel is envisioned to extend light rail to Newport News, which also plans to replace its existing Amtrak station (growing ridership often overcrowds it at train times) with two new stations—a fully-staffed, multimodal terminal off Bland Boulevard next to the Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport, and a small self-service station downtown off 30th Street.
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: amtrak, arlington streetcar, hampton roads, light rail, lynchburg train, newport news, norfolk, state rail passenger associations, the tide, tysons corner, us train stations, varp, virginia, vre,In Americans’ travel choices, the gears are clearly shifting
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The front page of this past Sunday’s New York Times featured a report on European cities’ efforts to reorient their streets towards people instead of cars. Rather than the government imposing undue restrictions on the ability to drive (as the Times’ headline might have made one think), these measures are merely responses to shifts in the “free” market. The higher cost of gasoline in Europe (over $8 per gallon, as quoted in the article), where taxes bring the price at the pump more in line with driving’s true cost to society, is a major factor contributing to the continent’s lower rate of automobile use than North America.
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Higher gas taxes, in turn, enable greater investment in transit (note the dense tram, i.e. streetcar, networks in the cities the article profiles), intercity rail, and wildly popular bike-sharing systems. Even without these amenities, many European urbanites simply find a car-free or car-lite city life—a more social, physically active and healthy lifestyle—preferable to the alternative. Thus, measures restricting the harm automobile traffic does to a city’s social fabric and air quality are welcomed as common-sense.
And it’s not just environmentalists and urbanists saying that we should try the same thinking in the US—even the CEO of the Ford Motor Company doesn’t think the future can rely exclusively on easy motoring. “We need to develop better mass transit systems and strive to find new forms of individual mobility,” CEO Bill Ford wrote for CNN after his talk at the annual TED conference. “Cars will continue to evolve, but they will need to work in harmony with other cars, city infrastructure and other forms of transportation.” Ford acknowledged that simply switching to cheaper, less-polluting fuels won’t solve any problems unless society also attacks “global gridlock,” the result of the overreliance on unfettered personal mobility. He touted the potential for the research and development of smarter transportation technologies—both auto and non-auto—to create a plethora of high-skill jobs that won’t be easy to outsource. Ford went as far as to say that restricting private automobile use in Manhattan is a good idea.
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: amtrak ridership, automobile dependence, bill ford, european city planning, ford motors, national transportation summit, new york times, newport news, virginia,Hopping the Local: Small Steps Forward
Thursday, November 03, 2011
While passenger train supporters’ attention has been rightfully focused on the meaningful improvements being made with the unprecedented $10.5 billion federal investment in rail infrastructure grants to states—and on ensuring that this crucial investment in our nation’s economic strength and sustainability continues—there is also important progress being made at the state, local and community levels. A survey of stories appearing in recent issues of the newsletters of state passenger associations reveals the following noteworthy developments not yet reported by NARP:
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| Amtrak’s eastbound Cardinal inches along very poor Buckingham Branch track at Orange, VA on Oct. 10, 2008. Photo by Donnie Biggs, RailPictures.net |
A faster, smoother ride for the Cardinal through Virginia: The Commonwealth of Virginia is partnering with the short line Buckingham Branch Railroad to invest in long-overdue upgrades to the track Amtrak’s tri-weekly Chicago-Cincinnati-Washington-New York Cardinal uses between Clifton Forge and Culpeper, the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons (VARP) reports.
Several miles of bumpy jointed rail has been replaced with smooth welded rail, the signal system has been modernized, and the slowest 10-mile segment of the line (Orange to Gordonsville, VA) has seen its maximum speed go from 15 mph to 30 mph after the track was improved. While these are rather modest gains in ride quality—and so far have not resulted in any shortening of the Cardinal’s schedule—they are steps in the right direction, and are paving the way for the eventual daily operation of this oft-neglected national network train.
I personally experienced a noticeably better ride on the eastbound Cardinal this past Sunday. On previous trips, the train rarely got above 60 mph over the Buckingham Branch as it rocked along over rough track. Now, with the exception of a couple of slow bumpy stretches, the train rocketed through the countryside at 65 to 70 mph. On previous trips, the train would often lose time even if it didn’t have to pull onto a siding on the single-track line to wait for a train going the opposite direction to pass.
This time, though we did lose 30 minutes waiting for another train to pass, we were able to make that up before arriving in Washington. Nevertheless, the Gordonsville to Orange portion was still painfully slow. The host railroad has neglected to properly maintain that segment since the Cardinal is the only train that uses it on a regular basis.
Posted by Malcolm Kenton
Tags: amtrak cardinal, buckingham branch railroad, canada, connecticut, housatonic railroad, infrastructure upgrades, manassas, metro-north railroad, station signage, via rail canada, virginia,©2010 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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