Virginia won't let anything derail its growing Amtrak service

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Virginia won’t let anything derail its growing Amtrak service
TRANSIT By Wyatt Gordon (Virginia Correspondent) September 10, 2019

This month marks a decade since Virginia debuted its first state-sponsored Amtrak routes: two lines from Lynchburg and Richmond that both terminate in DC. Such milestones are important, but the Commonwealth has other figures to celebrate—like the fact that its rail ridership has grown more than 7% within the last year.

That’s partly because there are more opportunities to ride. Virginia’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) expanded rail service to Hampton Roads by adding two more trains between Richmond and Norfolk, as well as one that travels to Newport News. The state is already planning a third Norfolk-bound train for 2021.

“There’s been a tremendous shift within the past five years towards multi-modal thinking,” said DRPT Director Jennifer Mitchell. “We are very focused on rail expansion in Virginia. It’s been a tremendous success so far. Our roads are so congested, we have to provide people alternatives to driving I-95, I-81, and I-64.”

This movement is exciting, but Virginia still has a ways to go before its train service is on par with its international neighbors, much less its regional ones.

There’s a lot of room for growth

{snip}

Wyatt Gordon is Greater Greater Washington's Virginia Correspondent. He's a born-and-raised Richmonder with a master's in Urban Planning from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a bachelor's in International Political Economy from American University. Previously he's written for the Times of India, Nairobi News, Civil Beat, Style Weekly, and RVA Magazine. You can find him on Richmond's Southside.

There was this comment:

town-mouse on September 10, 2019 at 2:12 pm
It looks like the Record of Decision for DC2RVA was released Sept. 5: http://dc2rvarail.com/rod/

It looks like it adds track almost all the way from DC to Richmond (except through Ashland) and adds 9 roundtrips per day, 4 of them continuing to North Carolina.

[AllaN01Bear]

1. cool.

i am an experianced amtrak rider . ive riden the trains since inception in 1970 to the 2000s and beyond . i wish them luck with the service . we need more high speed trains and modern passenger trains , not less.