Major investment to expand passenger services in Virginia
THE US state of Virginia has announced a $3.7billion investment programme to enhance passenger rail services.
The agreement with Class 1 freight railroad CSX Transportation, which currently owns most of the infrastructure used by commuter and Amtrak trains in Virginia, includes construction of a brand-new railway bridge over the Potomac River, connecting Washington DC with Arlington in Virginia.
The new $1.9bn passenger-only, double-track bridge will be built by around 2027 alongside the ‘Long Bridge’, which dates from 1904, and is shared by passenger and freight trains. At peak times the line is currently at full capacity.
Once the new bridge is open commuter services crossing Washington DC from Virginia into Maryland and vice versa are planned.
The agreement will also lead to the state buying more than 350 miles of railway routes (not all currently in use) and 225 miles of track for $525million.
New alignments or rebuilding is planned for 37 miles of this network to add capacity with separate freight and passenger tracks on much of the route from Arlington to Richmond, allowing passenger service levels to increase significantly, with more trains added in three phases to 2030 once the infrastructure work is complete.
Rebuilding
The lines being bought by Virginia will potentially allow completely new rail services linking Raleigh in North Carolina (NC) with Richmond.
Virginia is buying the 75-mile, long-lifted ex-Seaboard Coast line ‘S-Line’, which closed in the mid-1980s between Petersburg and Ridgeway, NC, with the aim of rebuilding it as a 110mph passenger route.
North Carolina has agreed to buy the 10-mile section to Ridgeway, south of its border with Virginia.
In addition, Virginia is buying the 173-mile section of the CSX-owned Buckingham Branch Line between Doswell (north of Richmond) and Clifton Forge to enable introduction of east to west Roanoke to Norfolk passenger services in the future.
Part of this line is already used by the Amtrak New York to Chicago ‘Cardinal’ service several times a week.
The upgraded rail infrastructure will enable introduction of more trains operated by both Amtrak and commuter railroad Virginia Railroad Express (VRE) on the Richmond to Washington DC route, which parallels the highly congested Interstate 95 (I-95) motorway route.
Virginia’s transport planners looked at adding one lane in each direction to I-95 for 50 miles but at $12.5bn would cost at least four times as much as the rail investment – and forecasts suggested the road would be full of queuing cars from the opening day.