Virginia Service expansion

[thefirewarde]

I hadn't heard about additional Roanoke round trips, but I'm in favor. I thought there was a Charlotte Lynchburg DC trip waiting on Charlotte Gateway and the Long Bridge (and equipment availability).

 

[City of Miami]

Someone (i.e. Amtrak or NS) has not done well with the addition of the second RNK frequency. In the mornings 3 Amtrak trains need to meet generally between Manassas and Charlottesville. There's ample double track there. But somehow they rarely manage it smoothly and often all 3 lose about half an hour south of Culpeper. 176 used to be very dependable; now it's late to WAS almost every trip. I don't get it. Adding in 20 to the mix 4 hrs later than the previous schedule certainly didn't help. There is almost never freight interference. The southbound trains are very frequently late departing WAS even if they arrive early. What is the persistent problem? VA is not getting what we paid for imo. Even so ridership is astonishing to me. 150+ people on the CVS platform is normal on Sunday mornings when all 3 trains arrive within half an hour (or so )!

 

[Septa9739]

Could it be a problem similar to what is happening in Columbus, WI with the Borealis? There is no platform (as far as I know) on the mainline farthest from the station. Does this artificially create single tracking conditions?

 

[thefirewarde]

Someone (i.e. Amtrak or NS) has not done well with the addition of the second RNK frequency. In the mornings 3 Amtrak trains need to meet generally between Manassas and Charlottesville. There's ample double track there. But somehow they rarely manage it smoothly and often all 3 lose about half an hour south of Culpeper. 176 used to be very dependable; now it's late to WAS almost every trip. I don't get it. Adding in 20 to the mix 4 hrs later than the previous schedule certainly didn't help. There is almost never freight interference. The southbound trains are very frequently late departing WAS even if they arrive early. What is the persistent problem? VA is not getting what we paid for imo. Even so ridership is astonishing to me. 150+ people on the CVS platform is normal on Sunday mornings when all 3 trains arrive within half an hour (or so )!

Per OpenRailwayMap there's quite a bit of single track starting adjacent to Zachary Taylor Highway to just after the Rapidan River crossing, over nine miles. Then you have over four miles of double track, then at Orange you drop back to single for maybe seven miles (I'm guessing they use the Washington district not Washington Subdivision?) - what I'm saying is, if they aren't in their slots in the first place I do kind of see how they hit more delays through there. Hopefully that spot, whatever is actually causing the issue, is on VPRA's radar.

 

[City of Miami]

Could it be a problem similar to what is happening in Columbus, WI with the Borealis? There is no platform (as far as I know) on the mainline farthest from the station. Does this artificially create single tracking conditions?

No. I have observed at least once a freight passing through CVS on the far track while an Amtrak train was in the station loading.

 

[Septa9739]

Correct. I understand it is physically double tracked, so is Columbus. The problem there is only one track currently serves the station, leading to a large block that is effectively single track for passenger trains, causing cascading delays if something enters that territory even a bit off schedule. If there’s little FTI and the delays are PTI, I’m curious how large that block is for Charlottesville.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

A brief history of the two-decade process to replace the Belmont Bridge: Over over under

OK, it's an article about a bridge in Charlottesville, over the Cardinal tracks, but it's interesting. Environmental and NIMBY concerns are not as advanced in Virginia as in New England and on the West Coast, but this project certainly took a long time to brew. Because of the municipal setup in Virginia, the city had to save up funds to pay for it, and then the fun started.

One suggestion was to make the railroad crossing at-grade, à la Ashland. But a car-centric bridge was also avoided. What never really came up was to deck over the lowland corridor that the tracks run along, à la Chicago roadways, or now, Boston, etc.

Architecture students perhaps played a more significant role than in previous idea festivals, such as the time one puckishly came up drawings for creating a canal system with water transportation.

To the left of the bridge, in the picture in the article, was once a C&O roundhouse. When that was all excavated for an office building, the soil was black with coal dust fifteen feet down.

 

[City of Miami]

A simple underpass/trench would have been smarter in every way. This huge brutalist construction to cross 2 RR tracks, one very seldom used and poorly maintained, is already suffering graffiti defacement. Ridiculous that they say a final late overrun of $7,000,000 (22%) due to supply chain issues was slight. Spending other people's $$$ etc.

 

[SubwayNut]

Question - any updates on when the relocated and new Newport News Station is going to open? Google has shared photos of the looking completed new station out by the airport but don't see anything else.

I have an oppertunity either at the beginning of next month or the beginning of October to ride that new milage for me on the NE Regional and would really like to arrive at the old station (to get it for SubwayNut before those tracks are no longer in passenger service).

Beginning of October is looking more promising for me travel schedule wise - will tag on Roanoke to my September trip instead - - but if the new station is looking like a mid-September opening I'll prioritize going there in September instead.

 

[WBG Station 1935]

New Newport News station in service
https://www.13newsnow.com/article/n...news/291-8f729d06-7592-4cc9-9672-14d35f3f07e2

 

[Goldspike_Railfanning]

New Newport News station in service
https://www.13newsnow.com/article/n...news/291-8f729d06-7592-4cc9-9672-14d35f3f07e2

It’s awesome! I watched the first inbound train to the station arrive and also met people from Amtrak, VPRA, and the local government! Interior of the station looks amazing and is a great waiting space, and being level with the train was nice too.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

"During the transition to the new station, Thruway Bus service will continue to stop at the old station through August 29." (Thruways run between NPN and NFK for some trains, and also Virginia Beach a few blocks from the ocean.) Looks like northbound NPN trains depart six minutes later at the new station, which makes sense, but website booking does not show the change for today.

NPN-WBG is now 13 minutes.

 

[SubwayNut]

In my opinion the stations awful at least when trying to access it by public transportation. I took the first afternoon Northbound train yesterday out of the station. Arrived on the last train into the old station (Just made it! I was already on DC and rearranged my trip to head down).

Nearly missed the train because my HRT public bus was a good 20 minutes late, plus the long walk up the long driveway into the new station. There was a collection of people at the front of the platform photographing the train leaving.

The ironic part was after running to catch the train, we sat in Williamsburg for a good 25 minutes waiting for the Thurway Bus from Virginia Beach to arrive! We left had Newport News without it.

 

[Goldspike_Railfanning]

In my opinion the stations awful at least when trying to access it by public transportation. I took the first afternoon Northbound train yesterday out of the station. Arrived on the last train into the old station (Just made it! I was already on DC and rearranged my trip to head down).

Nearly missed the train because my HRT public bus was a good 20 minutes late, plus the long walk up the long driveway into the new station. There was a collection of people at the front of the platform photographing the train leaving.

The ironic part was after running to catch the train, we sat in Williamsburg for a good 25 minutes waiting for the Thurway Bus from Virginia Beach to arrive! We left had Newport News without it.

From the looks of it, HRT has not fully moved into the station yet. I was over at the bus loop to watch the inbound train reverse into the wye and saw spots reserved for HRT buses.

 

[jis]

Service extension to New River Valley makes progress

https://virginiamercury.com/2024/08...xtend-passenger-rail-to-the-new-river-valley/

 

[west point]

This is fairly good. However, from old timetables it is slow. LYH - RNK 53 miles N&W 1:20 Amtrak sch 1:15 and can do it 1:20. RNK - Christiansburg 33 miles N&W with stop at Salem 1:10; Christiansburg - Radford 10.6 miles N&W took 0:25 or 0:21. These are all slow sections and IMO need fixing.

We IMO cannot expect VA DOT to expend highway funds to build a quicker route but somehow these route sections all need an Amtrak 79 + MPH or better route to decrease the slow 2:40 hour LYH - Radford 96 miles to 2:00 and LYH - future Bristol to 4:00 from N&W's 5:20.

 

[thefirewarde]

Getting the service running at all is a decent first step. Incremental improvements as grant money comes up should be fine at least until VA has digested their DC-Richmond service improvements. If it came down to it I'd rather see Roanoke - Richmond - Norfolk exist than a gold plated NRV extension, though obviously both would be nice. Similarly there are other higher priority projects so long as the NRV is getting built at all, and then in the early 2030s I expect there'll be room in the queue for improvements.

Unless they're doing electrification - that could easily take VPRA's focus for a decade or more.

 

[west point]

Getting the service running at all is a decent first step. Incremental improvements as grant money comes up should be fine at least until VA has digested their DC-Richmond service improvements. If it came down to it I'd rather see Roanoke - Richmond - Norfolk exist than a gold plated NRV extension, though obviously both would be nice. Similarly there are other higher priority projects so long as the NRV is getting built at all, and then in the early 2030s I expect there'll be room in the queue for improvements.

Unless they're doing electrification - that could easily take VPRA's focus for a decade or more.

Grew up ion the Bristol area. As much as I would like to see SW Virginia get better service unfortunately you are correct. SW VA has been veery isolated from Richmond so it has been neglected due to the geography of the terrain. The glaciers cut in the wrong direction.

Probably the area cannot get satisfaction before 2050.

 

[MARC Rider]

. The glaciers cut in the wrong direction.

No glaciers that far south, even during the Ice Ages. The long mountain ridges are a result of a collision between the ancestral African continent and ancestral North America.

 

[jis]

No glaciers that far south, even during the Ice Ages. The long mountain ridges are a result of a collision between the ancestral African continent and ancestral North America.

More precisely collision between the ancestral North America and Gondwanaland. But yes, the part of Gondwanaland that was involved in the formation of the Appalachians eventually split from Gondwanaland into the African continent. nicely described in this NPS document

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/geology/plate-tectonics-collisional-mountain-ranges.htm

Actually there were three distinct orogenies (mountain building periods) involved in the Appalachians, the last of which is the one mentioned above. There were two earlier ones, the evidence of which are found even in some of the surface rocks in the region.

The bottom line is that the alignment of the ridges and valleys in the Blue Ridge and Piedmont region arise from original tectonic activity and not glaciation.

 

[Goldspike_Railfanning]

Now there is the Commonwealth Corridor that was approved by the Corridor ID program, so we will see some east/west service eventually. However, given the number of projects on the DC - Richmond corridor, and the heavy infrastructure upgrades the Doswell - Charlottesville part of the route requires (of which is the mostly single-tracked Piedmont Subdivision), we won't be seeing this east/west service anytime soon. But at least it's heavily considered as hinted by Virginia's purchase of the Piedmont from Doswell to Charlottesville.

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

Seems like East-west will be the next thing after the New River Valley station and the big Richmond to Raleigh project. Richmond to DC is under construction.

The NS mainline from Roanoke to a New River Valley station (Christiansburg, Blacksburg, Va. Tech) is likely is good shape, compared to the sideline the state purchased a few years back. Now the plans are back on the mainline, and presumably will use the station site Christiansburg secured a decade ago on the mainline.

Here's some explanation of the historic timetables. The mountain between RNK to future NRV constitutes the sub-continental divide between Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico drainage. Roanoke, like Atlanta, was founded as a railroad hub, with the N&W engine workshops in the wide Roanoke Valley. Traffic on I-81 is difficult around Roanoke in rush hour, not to mention the longer I-81 swoosh of long-distance trucking from Pennsylvania to the I-81/I-77 split in Wytheville. So Amtrak train service to replace the Thruway bus service will be welcome and popular. Just southwest of future NRV is Radford, and south of that the NS mainline becomes a mainly single-track winding corridor to Bristol.

Starting back in Roanoke, the Amtrak route eastward to Bedford and Lynchburg is over a low pass in the Blue Ridge. From Roanoke northward on I-81 is the Shenandoah Valley: Lexington, Staunton (Amtrak), Harrisonburg (JMU), Front Royal, Winchester. There's been nary a peep about Amtrak service in the northern Shenandoah Valley, to the Washington exurbs on the W.Va. and Maryland panhandles. In older literature the northern Valley is called the lower Valley, because the rivers flow north to the Potomac. The other low pass over the Blue Ridge in Virginia is in that exurban area, as is the state arboretum. One county on the Potomac allows about zero development, and others have a mix of preservation and extensive development. People commute from West Virginia over this development gap to work in the DC suburbs.

The subterranean policy trade-off for supporting more passenger rail is between struggling areas like Bristol that would benefit, and Northern Virginia that needs. The middle of that range are places like Richmond that are growing, but have not reached NoVa levels of congestion. You could say Bristol would benefit the most, qualitatively, and in some version of cost-benefit analysis long term. Meanwhile, NoVa is paying the lions share of state taxes, without the equivalent political influence, though it has plenty. Probably not that different than other states with a dominant city. Except NoVa is not a city.

 

[jis]

More reports on the purchase of trackage from NS for extending passenger service in Virginia...

The Virginia Passenger Rail Authority board of directors has approved a recently negotiated plan with Norfolk Southern to acquire the railroad’s former Southern Railway route out of Alexandria, Va., to Manassas, Va., and gain Amtrak train access to the NS main line beyond Roanoke, Va., to Christiansburg, Va.

In a press release, the agency notes the board’s acceptance paves the way for the agreement to be finalized, according to D.J. Stadtler, VRPA’s executive director. No dollar amounts were referenced, but Roanoke-based Cardinal News reports some previously revealed details.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-rev...-line-purchase-extension-to-christianburg-va/

 

[Goldspike_Railfanning]

Virginia has broken ground on the new Long Bridge! This project is part of a larger project to separate passenger and freight traffic in Virginia between DC and Richmond by constructing a third and fourth mainline track on the RF&P. These two tracks will be owned by VPRA and will prioritize passenger trains. I predict that the Alexandria fourth track is not too far behind, with utilities currently being relocated for the track.

Read More Here:
https://vapassengerrailauthority.or...-furthers-new-era-in-rail-travel-in-virginia/