RICHMOND, Va. — High-speed trains have yet to leave Richmond’s Main Street Station, but a whistle of hope could blow tonight in Northern Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
Meeting in Dale City and Arlington, the boards governing the region’s commuter rail service may approve contracts that will jump-start a long-awaited $67 million high-speed rail project.
“It starts making the improvement to the corridor we need to get more train service,” said Leo Bevon, director of Virginia’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation.
Since early 2000, his agency has been working with the Virginia Railway Express, the commuter rail service in Northern Virginia, and CSX Corp., the freight railroad that owns and maintains the train track. An amended operating pact between VRE and CSX will be considered tonight by the twin boards overseeing the commuter rail — the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission and the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission.
If the deal is approved, Virginia can start paying for track and bridge improvements, which would improve train speeds and service from Washington to Richmond. They include new tracks at a bottleneck in the Franconia-Springfield area of Fairfax County, and better track crossovers south of Fredericksburg, Bevon said.
VRE commuter trains can be delayed when they get stuck behind slow-moving CSX freight.
But CSX officials tout the improved on-time performance of the commuter trains — from 90 percent in the mid-1990s to 96 percent today.
High-speed rail advocates counter that the contract talks have moved at a snail’s pace, delaying plans to bring high-speed trains to Richmond.
The goal: a top speed of 110 mph, up from the current 70 mph maximum on Amtrak trains from Richmond to Washington — creating a 97-minute trip, or a drop of 28 minutes.
Gov. Jim Gilmore announced a high-speed rail plan in 1999 and the General Assembly allocated $67 million in early 2000.
Gilmore’s push has been backed by local civic and business leaders trying to reopen Main Street Station.
But rail advocates have become impatient for the work to begin. “Such delays ought to be a matter of considerable embarrassment to both the state of Virginia and CSX, neither of which appear to be capable of delivering the goods,” said Richard L. Beadles, founder of the Virginia High Speed Rail Development Committee.
“Hopefully,” he added, “the new administration of Governor-elect Warner will prove more successful in this important endeavor.”
Bevon called the group’s criticism “a little bit unfair.”
A major rail upgrade takes detailed study and engineering work, he said.
“It hasn’t been intransigence,” Bevon said. “CSX’s business is to run freight trains, and they had some concerns about additional passenger service.”
The state had identified about 100 possible improvements on the Richmond-Washington rail corridor. After CSX conducted its own analysis, that number was pared to six, Bevon said.
Robert W. Shinn, vice president of Richmond-based CSX, said all parties have been working hard to get the work under way.
“These are complex negotiations and involve tradeoffs both ways,” Shinn said. “We’re just about at a conclusion.”
Before CSX would sign a “memorandum of understanding” to let the state begin track and structural upgrades, it wanted to reach a new operating agreement with VRE.
The old agreement expired about two years ago, officials said, and CSX wanted to renegotiate the fees it charges VRE to use about 60 miles of railroad from Fredericksburg to Washington.
The fee issue arose after Norfolk Southern Corp., which also has track used by the commuter rail, negotiated higher user fees. Officials would not provide specifics of the fee increase.
Pete Sklannik Jr., VRE’s chief operating officer, said he too has been frustrated at times by the pace of the talks with CSX.
While CSX Corp. is based in Richmond, its top operating officers work in Jacksonville, Fla.
“They are a large operation,” Sklannik said. “Outside the commonwealth, particularly in Jacksonville, there may not be the same sensitivity to treating the VRE like a customer.”
Shinn, of CSX, said the railroad has made “a major commitment” in communications and track improvements to keep the commuter rail running on time.
The new contract will allow the VRE to run a new mid-day train between Washington’s Union Station to Fredericksburg.
A side agreement could provide for an upgrading of the train station in Quantico.
“We’d like to make Quantico a downtown hub,” Sklannik said.