(The following column by Chip Jones appeared on the Times-Dispatch website on October 4.)
RICHMOND, Va. — An empty CSX coal train rumbled by Main Street Station one day last week, briefly drowning out a panel discussion on the future of passenger rail service in Virginia.
The screech of the coal hoppers provided an apt soundtrack for the topic, which has had its share of dissonance.
The future of passenger trains – mostly Amtrak – is inextricably tied to the performance of freight railroads. They own the track, the signals, and call the shots on train operations.
For Richmond that means CSX Corp., the nation’s third-largest railroad.
CSX, which owns the 100-mile stretch of track linking Richmond and Washington, often takes the heat when things go wrong with Amtrak. (Amtrak depends on freight rails in most of the country, with the major exception of the Northeast rail corridor from Washington to Boston.)
It’s been an often stormy marriage of convenience, but the spats usually occur behind the scenes.
That wasn’t the case last Wednesday when more than 100 people attending the Richmond Friends of Rail conference experienced some rare moments of candor by Virginia’s top rail official.
Karen J. Rae, director of the assured the audience that “this is one of the key CSX corridors in the country,” connecting Southeast to Northeast.
“I don’t think there’s any question that we want the money,” he said of the $65.7 million state grant.
But he said CSX has had to be careful about how and where it makes changes in its system, especially when there are no federal dollars to help make track improvements.
Shinn said he recently visited Japan, riding on 180 mph bullet trains. But those trains wouldn’t run without “substantial investment” by the government, he said.
Virginia’s investment is a good start, he said, but the ultimate price tag to make significant upgrades between Richmond and Washington is in the $300 million to $400 million range.
The agreement to improve the Richmond-Washington corridor s the first of its kind for CSX, Shinn said.
“It has been a lengthy process, and not been easy,” he said.
CSX had to develop sophisticated computer models to measure the impact of the state’s construction plan, he said in an interview.
But the overriding issue – is CSX on board with Virginia’s plans to improve passenger rail service? – remained an open question.
In a letter to CSX Chairman and CEO Michael Ward, the head of Virginians for High Speed Rail, said he understood the railroad’s recent weather-related problems.
But Thomas Tingle wrote that “the $65.7 million appropriated by the Virginia General Assembly as part of the Transportation Act of 2000 has been sitting there for four years.
“Expectations were for many more than two trains to be arriving at Main Street Station by 2004 as just one example of the hoped-for rail improvement.”
He expressed regrets to Ward for the storm-damage, but “that does not explain the previous four years of inaction.”
Gerald McCarthy, who represents Richmond on the Commonwealth Transportation Board, said the debate over rail service and CSX’s role is just starting.
“North Carolina invests in Amtrak,” he noted. “We don’t yet.”
On Oct. 26, a long-range planning group – Vtrans2025 – will meet at 10 a.m. at the Department of Motor Vehicles office at 2300 W. Broad St. It will take up the rail funding issues, McCarthy said.
“If we get any new money, certainly one of the uses for it ought to be a more balanced investment approach as far as moving people – and that means rail,” he said.