(The following story by Chip Jones appeared on the Richmond Times-Dispatch website on September 4.)
RICHMOND, Va. — Amtrak has battened down the hatches from North Carolina to Florida today, canceling all train service threatened by Hurricane Frances.
The Auto Train leaving Lorton yesterday was one of the last trains that left Virginia for Florida.
Today, “nothing will run north and south to or from Florida,” said Amtrak spokeswoman Marcie Golgoski.
Amtrak resumed its regional service from Newport News on Thursday, but trains can’t stop at Main Street Station, in flood-ravaged Shockoe Bottom. The storm did more than $1 million in damage to the station, destroying two of its parking lots and smashing an 18-wheeler through its wrought-iron security gate.
“We have no idea . . . when it’s going to be back up,” Golgoski said.
Trains between Richmond and Newport News ran 90 minutes to two hours late yesterday, Amtrak said.
CSX Corp., the freight railroad whose tracks Amtrak uses, continued to make repairs north and south of Main Street Station.
CSX stopped running trains in much of Florida yesterday. But the company’s headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla., did not close, according to spokesman Gary Sease.
In another matter, Amtrak announced yesterday that it would stop carrying mail and express shipments for the U.S. Postal Service. The railroad said it wants “to concentrate on the core business of transporting passengers.”
Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn said the mail and package hauling “no longer makes sense for Amtrak and has negatively impacted the quality of our passenger service.”
The railroad will stop hauling mail by October, he said.
Some stations in Florida, Ohio and Indiana will lose passenger service because of the change.