(The following article by Chip Jones was posted on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website on January 6.)
RICHMOND, Va. — After two full weeks of operation, Amtrak officials sounded upbeat yesterday about the early response to revived passenger rail service at downtown Richmond’s Main Street Station.
“I’m pleasantly surprised,” said Michael Jerew, Amtrak’s district manager for Virginia and West Virginia. “The word is apparently out and people are using it.”
Formal ridership data are not yet available, said Amtrak spokesman Dan Stessel. But since service began Dec. 20, he said, “We are encouraged by feedback from those passengers boarding at Main Street Station and by the potential for ridership growth.”
Based on preliminary numbers, it appears an average of 15 to 20 passengers are boarding a northbound train midmorning, with an equal number arriving at Main Street on a return train in late afternoon.
Regional trains linking Washington and Newport News seem to be posting slightly lower numbers, he said.
The city-owned, 102-year-old station was reopened last month after the completion of the first phase of a planned $51.6 million renovation project.
The downtown depot last served rail passengers in 1975. The new station has a 56-space pay parking lot, with plans for more spaces nearby.
Stessel noted the rocky start to the station’s revival. Train service was delayed by two days after a Dec. 18 freight-train derailment in Alexandria.
It’s also “tough to know what effect the holidays have had on Main Street Station’s ridership,” Stessel said. “Every station has a different pattern and AMTRAK . . . we don’t have history to go on.”
Amtrak has been completing telecommunications work inside the station to add a self-service ticketing machine – Quik-Trak. Currently, passengers must board the train and buy tickets from the conductor.
Once the machine is in place, Amtrak will be better able to compile passenger data, Stessel said.
The building’s grandeur was cited by many of the dozen passengers gathered Friday for a 10:46 a.m. train. Most planned to ride to Washington or New York City.
Several customers said the downtown location was more convenient than driving to Staples Mill Station in Henrico County.
“It’s closer to my home in Chesterfield,” said Sam May, whose visiting aunt and cousin were returning to New York City.
His 13-year-old cousin, Allison Hector, said she felt the station lacked one thing: shopping.
“There’s no stores here,” she said. At New York’s Penn Station, she said, “They have Roy Rogers and stores where you can get greeting cards.”
It would be nice to have a cafe at Main Street, “but it wouldn’t have to be as big” as the busier New York station, she said.
Richmond officials have said they have plans to operate something like a cafe in a vacant room off the lobby.
As student groups and others toured the spacious landmark, the Amtrak passengers noted its aesthetic charm.
“I love it,” said Nicole Gerike, a freshman at Virginia Tech riding to Washington after a visit here. “It’s like the old train station.”
Fellow Tech student Katrina Kastendieck chose to drop her friend off downtown, even though Staples Mill is about the same distance from her home in Chesterfield County.
“It’s just prettier,” she said of Main Street.
“It’s an architectural gem,” said David Freed of Richmond. With a senior discount, he said two round-trip tickets to Washington cost $100 for his wife and himself.
The cost of rail travel was on the minds of a young Richmond couple going to vacation in New York City.
“We’re only going for a couple of days,” said Brad Richards, a local architect. “I wouldn’t want to drive it.”
Richards said he paid $190 for a round-trip ticket to New York.
“I think the fares are high, but if they were lower, I’d take it a lot more,” he said.