(The following story by Kelly Hannon appeared on the Free Lance Star website on July 22.)
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — Virginia Railway Express trains were delayed yesterday when CSX Corp. was unable to send train orders for several hours.
Trains 306 and 308 were delayed, and Train 310 was canceled on the Fredericksburg Line.
The CSX system failure affected five commuter train services on the East Coast, including MARC in suburban Maryland, said VRE spokesman Mark Roeber.
Roeber said such a widespread network failure is a rare occurrence.
“Those people that are new to our system, it will probably make them nervous. I think anybody who’s been riding with us for a while realizes this is something beyond our control,” Roeber said.
CSX owns the tracks used by VRE trains, and it controls train dispatching.
Trains cannot operate until they receive orders from CSX, which include track information and speed restrictions.
Evening and midday train service was not affected by the communication disruption, which was fixed by 7:40 a.m. Early morning VRE trains 300, 302 and 304 departed Fredericksburg before the disruption.
The glitch was a setback for VRE, which saw ridership grow to an average of 15,627 passengers a day in June, the highest average number of riders in a year.
On Monday, VRE recorded 15,852 passengers, the highest numbers of riders for a Monday ever.
On-time performance dipped in June on the Fredericksburg Line, though, with 69 percent of trains arriving on time.
Before June, the on-time rate for Fredericksburg trains had consistently been in the upper 70 percent and 80 percent range for a year.
CSX was doing signal repairs in June, which contributed to delays. With that work concluded, VRE trains on the Fredericksburg Line were arriving on time 86 percent of the time in July, until yesterday.
In a statement passed along to riders through VRE, CSX said it “regrets the inconvenience the problems caused commuters.”