(The following story by Ray Reed appeared on the News & Advance website on April 24.)
CULPEPER, Va. — Communities along the U.S. 29 corridor have a 30-day “window of opportunity” to persuade state officials and Amtrak to start up a daily passenger train between Lynchburg and Washington, rail advocates told local leaders Thursday.
Lynchburg Councilman Bert Dodson said he liked the enthusiasm that Amtrak representative Thomas Stennis demonstrated to city and county leaders along the U.S. 29 corridor who gathered here at the urging of the Piedmont Rail Coalition.
“I thought it would be one of those, ‘Well, it’s a good idea but it would cost a lot and be a number of years’” presentations, Dodson said. “But the Amtrak representative was pretty serious about how Amtrak felt about it, so I think it’s a great idea,” Dodson said.
Dodson said he couldn’t speak for the entire council, but he planned to present the information he gathered there to the other members.
It’s already hard to get a ticket from Lynchburg to Washington on the one train that operates on that route daily, several people at the meeting said.
Amtrak wants to start a second train daily, and although it would need state-funded assistance estimated at $1.8 million per year, Amtrak predicts it would have 33,000 riders the first year.
Dodson said a second daily train could allow people who work in Northern Virginia and Washington to live in smaller cities along the U.S. 29 corridor and commute by train a couple of days per week while working from home on other days.
Stennis said he personally estimated the train could be operating within two years, because the state’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation is showing strong support.
John J. Davies, the Culpeper area’s representative on the Commonwealth Transportation Board that oversees the rail department, said he thought a five-year time frame was more likely.
Davies told the community leaders that getting their letters and comments into the Transportation Board’s record in the next month is vital. The Department of Rail and Public Transportation will produce a statewide rail plan in June, and the U.S. 29 corridor could fare well in that plan if community leaders support the concept of a second daily train to Washington.
Davies said another north-south route, the Interstate 95 corridor from Richmond to Washington, is competing with U.S. 29 in the rail plan, and the I-95 corridor has a larger population and more potential riders.
The conditions that favor U.S. 29 are Norfolk Southern Railway tracks that are already in excellent shape for passenger service, and a comparatively low cost to Amtrak for starting up the service.
Davies told the community leaders that although public funds would be needed to support the service, the cost would be justified because of the route’s potential for economic development.
Freight rail traffic through Virginia is poised to increase sharply because the port at Hampton Roads is being upgraded to handle more container freight, and an inland port is soon to be built near Roanoke to offload those containers onto trucks and northbound trains.
Norfolk Southern is depending on state funding to help it upgrade its tracks to handle more freight trains, and that gives Virginia an opportunity to persuade NS to let more passenger trains use its rails, Davies said.