(The following article by Edie Gross was posted on the Free Lance-Star website on August 16.)
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — CSX Transportation crews failed to finish a railroad project this weekend because they were “erring on the side of safety,” a company spokesman said.
But officials with Virginia Railway Express, who scrambled yesterday to move commuters through a 20-mile construction zone on its Fredericksburg line, said CSX’s actions left thousands of passengers struggling to get to and from work in a timely fashion.
CSX mentioned there might be small delays during Monday’s commute, in the 15- to 20-minute range, said VRE spokesman Mark Roeber.
But Sunday night, with CSX crews still trying to complete the project, VRE officials realized that if they ran all six morning trains on the Fredericksburg line, backups could run as long as four hours, Roeber said.
“They [CSX] talked to us about delays, but not to the point that it would disrupt service,” said Roeber. “If we had run our full schedule, it would’ve gotten ugly real fast.”
Instead, VRE made a last-minute decision to operate on its “S” schedule, usually reserved for holidays or snow days. Of the three trains that left from Fredericksburg yesterday morning, one was an hour late, another 45 minutes behind and the last 40 minutes late.
That means passengers boarding in Fredericksburg could have spent up to 21/2 hours just getting to D.C. Evening trains were delayed, as well, with at least one pulling into Fredericksburg an hour and 45 minutes late.
Since VRE knew every train would be late and that the delays were not its fault, the agency decided not to hand out free-ride certificates yesterday, something it usually does when its trains are a half-hour or more behind.
The tie-ups occurred on a 20-mile stretch of track between Spotsylvania and Possum Point, just north of Quantico in southeastern Prince William County.
Two parallel railroad tracks run through most of that territory. If a passenger train ends up behind a slow-moving freight train, it could be stuck there for 20 miles since there’s no place to cross from one track to the other.
This weekend, CSX crews were working on the Arkendale Crossover, a $3 million project to add a connection between the two tracks so that fast trains can move past slow ones. While the equipment had been installed, signals weren’t yet being sent to the tracks.
This meant that dispatchers had to manually direct trains through that 20-mile stretch, slowing them to about 20 mph and causing massive delays up and down the line.
Amtrak trains traveling in the Washington-to-Richmond corridor were delayed five hours or more on Saturday and up to four hours on Sunday–“delays that were greatly in excess of the one-hour estimate CSX told Amtrak to expect,” according to an Amtrak press release.
CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan said crews wanted to test the new track signals and switches before allowing trains to run through that region at full speed.
“You’re doing a lot of that testing, obviously, because of the emphasis on safety. Over the course of the weekend, we had more delays than we wanted, but communication [with VRE and Amtrak] continued,” he said.
“Obviously, we regret the inconvenience incurred by customers of Amtrak and VRE.”
Sullivan said yesterday that crews were about halfway done with the project. All the work should be finished by midweek, he said.
“The important thing is to do it safely and to do it right, and not to compromise that in an effort to get something done faster,” Sullivan said.
VRE plans to offer all its morning trains today, though officials have said some could be delayed by a half-hour.
In the afternoon, early Train 301 will leave Washington’s Union Station at its regularly scheduled time, but passengers will have to get off in Woodbridge and catch buses to their final destinations.
Trains 303, 305, 307 and 309 will operate on schedule. Trains 311 and 313 are canceled, so passengers who usually ride those should take Amtrak Trains 93 or 85. Those trains will make all VRE stops, and no step-up tickets are required to ride them.
For details on the changes, visit vre.org on the Web.
“Right now, we’re just going day to day,” Roeber said.