Amtrak in Virginia

Passenger rail routes in Virginia, operational and planned as of 2010
Source: Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, Funding Strategies for State Sponsored Intercity and High Speed Passenger Rail (November 2010)

Most railroads in Virginia were built to carry freight. The state's first railroad was built to link the Midlothian coal fields of Chesterfield County with Richmond, and was designed to haul coal rather than people.

The only major railroad built primarily for passengers in Virginia, other than streetcar and modern commuter rail systems, was the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac (RF&P, now incorporated into the CSX railroad). It was designed to carry people (and some freight...) between northern and central Virginia.

The "P" in RF&P stands for the Potomac River. The company used steamships on the Potomac River to connect from the northern terminus at Aquia Creek to Washington DC until 1872, when an unbroken set of tracks finally connected Alexandria to Fredericksburg.

Until construction of the coal railroads into the Appalachian Plateau the 1880's, Virginia railroads were mostly farm-to-market transportation coridors linking the farms and small towns in the western part of the state to Fall Line ports and Norfolk in the east. Alexandria was a shipping port that incentivized farmers to trade in Alexandria by building the Orange and Alexandria, Manassas Gap, and Alexandria, Loudoun, and Hampshire railroads. Richmond-oriented investors built the Virginia Central and other lines to draw business to their port, particularly in competition with Norfolk.

The Norfolk and Western was the first railroad to go through the entire Shenandoah Valley, from north to south. It was financed by Pennsylvania investors after the Civil War, when Virginia was desperate for economic development even if it involved a connection to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Virginia-based traffic could end up boosting business at a competing Maryland port.

The Norfolk and Western built its line on the eastern side of Massanutten Mountain. Passenger traffic to Harrisonburg and other towns was projected to be less profitable than freight business from the iron furnaces at Shenandoah. The N&W also targeted the coal fields of the Appalachian Plateau, building westward down the New River valley into West Virginia to gain access to that freight business. The C&O did the same, building west from Staunton into the coal fields and haulting coal across Virginia to a new port at Newport News.

When the Virginian Railway was constructed in 1909, it bypassed existing towns with passenger stations served by its competitor, the Norfolk and Western. Henry Huttleston Rogers, "father" of the Virginian, did not want low-profit passenger trains to complicate the scheduling of the Virginian through-freights to Norfolk that were loaded with high-profit coal.

After the Civil War, competing railroads finally built connections so freight and people did not need to be unloaded, "drayed" to a competing railroad's station several blo\cks to a mile away, then reloaded onto a different train. Railroads, when interchanging freight, finally built massive "yards" such as the old Potomac Yard in Alexandria. When interchanging passengers, "Union Stations" were built.

railroad gap in 1852 - no direct link
between Fredericksburg/Alexandria before Civil War
Source: Library of Congress, Map of the proposed line of Rail Road connection between
tide water Virginia and the Ohio River at Guyandotte, Parkersburg and Wheeling

Passenger traffic could be profitable, and at times Virginia railroads competed for passenger traffic and prestige. The Southern Railway bragged about service on the Crescent, whiler the C&O advertised its air-conditioned cars were so comfortable that passengers could "sleep like a kitten."

In 1971, all but one railroad in Virginia abandoned the passenger rail market, and Amtrak began operations. The Southern Railroad tranferred its passenger service to Amtrak in 1979, unable to compete with air travel and interstate highways. Today, Amtrak services 16 stations in Virginia. Trains run between Petersburg-Washington, DC, plus Newport News-Richmond, Clifton Forge-DC, and Danville-DC. Amtrak gets some commuter traffic on its routes in Northern Virginia. There is no long distance passenger rail service for Roanoke, and a trip between Richmond and Charlottesville will require a "mode shift" to buses or a long detour north to Alexandria.

Amtrak routes in Virginia, as of 2010
Source: Amtrak Route Atlas

Amtrak is a passenger rail system, and owns no track in Virginia. The Rail Passenger Service Act that created Amtrak guaranteed it access ("trackage") rights to use railroad lines owned by other railroads, to operate intercity passenger trains. Amtrak pays CSX and Norfolk Southern for the use of their rail lines. Scheduling passenger trains and negotiating costs is a major challenge for Amtrak officials, since the private rail companies see passenger trains as a headache that constrains scheduling of profit-generating freight trains.

Visions of expanding long-distance passenger service are reflected in various studies by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, including a proposal for upgrading existing service between Newport News-washington DC and providing Amtrak service to Norfolk by 2013 via the Norfolk Southern tracks parallel to US 460, implementing the "Richmond to South Hampton Roads High-Speed Rail Feasibility Study." The proposed Trans-Dominion Express, which could be completely independent of Amtrak, would connect Alexandria with Bristol on the Tennessee border. High Speed Rail could connect Norfolk to DC, via Richmond and Alexandria. In all scenarios, public funding would be used to upgrade the existing rail lines and acquire "trainsets" (locomotives and passenger cars).

A proposal to connect Dulles International Airport to Richmond with intercity rail services, including passenger rail, was floated in December, 2007. Consultant Jim Crupi advised Richmond-area leaders to build:¹

Visions are one thing, funding is the real-world challenge. In 2005, the General Assembly created the Rail Enhancement Fund and dedicated 3% of the tax on car rentals to finance rail infrastructure and Amtrak operations that expand service within Virginia. In 2009, the state started to subsidize one train daily between Lynchburg-DC, and in 2010 did the same for an additional train between Richmond-DC. The Lynchburg train has exceeded expectations for customers and revenues, even collecting enough fares to cover costs of operations.

However, Congress decided in the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 to limit Federal support for Amtrak to intercity passenger rail routes of greater than 750 miles between endpoints, plus the Northeast Corridor between DC-Boston. Of the 15 Amtrak trains crossing Virginia now, Congress will continue to fund 7 that go at least 750 miles.

Starting in 2013, Virginia must find funding to finance 4 more trains along with the already-subsidized trains going from Lynchburg/Richmond to DC. (North Carolina is expected to continue to subsidize the "Carolinian" train connecting Charlotte-New York City.)

Virginia highways and ports are funded by fees/taxes dedicated to those operations, but the General Assembly must include money in the annual budget for rail operations. The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation had proposed a solution: increase the tax on rental cars or diverting funding away from highways, increasing funding to suport passenger rail and reducing the political risk that passenger rail funding might be blocked in the annual budget debates.²

Amtrak in Virginia

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