Yes CSX trains from the Southside Hampton Roads area go through North Carolina first before turning north. The intermodal trains then go toward Richmond's Main Street station via the slow S-Line, reverse direction for a short distance then proceed on the James River Line
Second Lynchburg train considered
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I'm impressed how the language in the bill goes to some length to protect the Intercity Passenger Rail Operating and Capital Fund from being drained for other purposes. Which should allow VDRPT to build up the IPROC fund to tackle bigger projects if they choose to do so. Someone in the legislature must have been concerned about a future VDOT director or Governor going after the IPROC funds for their own pet highway or road project. As for spending VDRPT IPROC funds on a project tied in with VRE, it is likely a bit complicated, but I expect the CTB and the agencies work out formulas on how to split the costs.
I went to the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) website and found this March 31 Quarterly Financial Report from VDRPT. They are sitting on around $76 million of unobligated funds in the IPROC fund after the FY15 needs are addressed. That is a respectable pot of money, enough to tackle any number of medium sized projects. The report states: "The Department is currently evaluating long term rail program needs to determine a path to utilize these unobligated balances." Having extra funds to spend on passenger rail projects is a good position to be in.
The report also has this update on the delayed Arkendale to Powell's Creek 3rd track project:
If they don't get started soon, the clock could run out on the money before construction is completed.
Well, the forces behind the bill were William Howell (Speaker of the House, from Fredericksburg) and Frank Wagner (state Senator who has been in the legislature for over 20 years). The bill was constructed as a result of a bunch of compromises by a number of politicians who wanted to protect key projects in exchange for, frankly, the hell some of them were expecting to get in response for the tax increases in the bill. The result was a lot of highly-protected and highly-restricted pots of money (IPROC, the Mass Transit Fund, the Hampton Roads Transportation Fund, etc.).
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found this quote that relates to Richmond VA:
"I would settle for help extending our electrified territory to RICHMOND within the next five years, and making plans to extend that on to Atlanta or beyond in the next ten"
Joe Boardman- CEO and "prophet" lol
Jan 28, 2009
just something to think about...
"I would settle for help extending our electrified territory to RICHMOND within the next five years, and making plans to extend that on to Atlanta or beyond in the next ten"
Joe Boardman- CEO and "prophet" lol
Jan 28, 2009
just something to think about...
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This came up at the VHSR luncheon a few years ago. Basically, my understanding is that electrifying the RF&P would be cost-prohibitive and need an astounding amount of cooperation from CSX (not to mention the USMC, among others). Likewise, the RVR-WAS HSR project is apparently already up in the $1.8-2.0bn range (it was $1.8bn back in '09-'10), and I think that sticks with diesel service.
As much as I think a lot of folks would like to see the Acela or a Next-Gen HSR project extended to Richmond (or beyond), it just does not seem to be in the cards, even if the amount of development you could hit Richmond with off of that would probably offset the cost to the state over time (I mean...you could probably get RVR-WAS travel time down in the 70-80 minute range with a good alignment and limited stopping).
Eh. Odds are that you could probably pay back the cost of an RRIF loan to build a 125mph electrified line to Richmond out of the increased revenue. Call it $2.5 billion, that's just under 150 million per year with a 4% loan for 30 years.
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Revenue or excess revenue? I have no doubt you could generate $150m in revenue from a line with enough frequencies (the six VA trains generated a bit over $50m/yr combined last year, so you'd probably need about 18-20 daily round trips to make that work), but that would also assume the state picking up basically the entire tab for operations. Even if you put in some sort of offset from VRE, for example, paying an access charge you would still probably need to find $100-125m/yr in "spare" revenue.
I also have to wonder what ridership on the line would max out at in the first 5-10 years. You might be able to get up into the 2.5m range if you push it, but at present per-passenger revenue levels (likely high, since a lot of the ridership is from Hampton Roads riders who average somewhere around $65 vs. the RVR-WAS only trains with per-passenger revenue closer to $50) you'd only get to around $150m. Even if you offset it with some Acela service and pushed the average overall yield to $75, you'd only be looking at $187.5m at 2.5m riders.
As near I can tell, to get the sorts of excess revenue you'd need, even assuming you plopped most of the IPROC money into the project to offset the loan costs, you'd probably be looking at needing about 4 million riders/year on the line, counting ridership to/from Hampton Roads, for the state not to have to come up with a lot of extra money. From what I can tell, this is roughly on par with NEC-North...and once you get south of Fairfax, Virginia does not have the population levels that support NEC-North.
To get that kind of ridership, you really would need those commute times to drop into the 70-75 minute range. This would have a chance of turning Richmond into a major bedroom community of Washington...but even that transformation would likely take a decade or two to really take hold, and you'd likely end up having to somehow support mixed-stop trains all the way from Richmond into Washington to deal with the consequent development along I-95...which would in turn complicate that time demand. I can see it being done, but the sort of planning you'd need...
*deep breath*
The only way to support a serious Richmond-Washington commuter corridor that has significant endpoint traffic is going to be to have most trains only make 1-2 stops on each side of Fredericksburg at most. For an illustrative example, I'll take stops at Ashland (present) and Carmel Church (planned; have used CMC as a stand-in code) south of FBG and Woodbridge and Quantico north of Fredericksburg. During the morning and evening commutes, what you would have is something like this:
XXX0: RVR-ASD-FBG-WDB-ALX-WAS
XXX2: RVR-CMC-FBG-QAN-ALX-WAS
Anyone wanting to do a funny station pair (say, CMC-WDB) would need to change at Fredericksburg. I assume that you'd have 4-6 stations on each side of Fredericksburg getting partial service out of this, simply because trying to pack folks into a VRE Gallery Car for an all-stops local from downtown Richmond to downtown Washington is...not even something Metro-North dares.
jis
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Finding a good and reasonably priced alignment between Alexandria and Fredericksburg would be the challenge. Once you have an alignment and tracks on it, electrifying it is the easy [art with very predictable cost and returns. Finding anew alignment between thence and Richmond may be easier, but who knows?
BTW, I found this interesting and informative 2013 annual report See the last page): http://www.vhsr.com/system/files/VHSRAnnualReport2013.pdf
A report on the Regional Rail vision for Virginia: http://www.vhsr.com/system/files/VARegionalReport.pdf
and fact sheet: http://www.vhsr.com/system/files/VARegionalFact.pdf
They talk of a WAS - RVR goal of 90 mins. Any idea what that involves?
and finally the official tome: http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/activities/files/00%20-%20Final%20VSRP.pdf
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Sometimes VHSR makes me want to scream. Danny Plaugher is a good guy, but some of the assumptions and facts in those reports do not add up and I can figure that out in 30 seconds. I'm going to try and convince them to drop some of the more blatant stuff; this is probably the worst bit:
"There are eighteen regional trains that now terminate north of the Potomac River that could be extended to Lynchburg, Newport News, and Norfolk, providing more frequent service along these lines, or the routes of these trains could be extended further to serve additional destinations. This would enable the Commonwealth to increase regional service levels 400 percent without having to invest in costly train equipment."
I'm going to assume that the equipment being referred to is the passenger cars (since you'd definitely need more locomotives). Extending those trains into Hampton Roads and Lynchburg adds roughly 6-8 hours of travel time to those trains' routes. Some of those trains have to turn at WAS. Let's take trains 151 and 111 (arriving in WAS at 0815 and 0845, respectively). Those are going to go back north later in the day. Now extend 151 to Norfolk (3:05 each way) and 111 to Lynchburg (4:05 each way). Assuming that the trains are basically continuously in motion and only allowing an hour to get the trains turned around and back out of the station at their terminus (and half an hour for the "toaster pop" at Washington):
-151 leaves Washington at 0845. It arrives in Norfolk at 1150 (right about when 67 is scheduled to hit NPN). It turns around at 1250, and gets back to Washington at 1555. It is probably ready to go out of Washington by 1630.
-111 leaves Washington at 0915. It arrives in Lynchburg at 1320, turns around at 1420, and gets back to Washington at 1825.
It should be obvious that these times are optimistic, and that allowing 2-3 hours to clean and turn the sets kills the ability to actually get them back to DC in a timely manner to use them. So Amtrak (or Virginia) will have to come up with some equipment to supplement what is already there if they want to extend everything.
The other problem that I've raised is that simply extending the existing Regional timetable deep into VA is a formula for lots of really badly-timed trains. I can take 3-4 trains with late-night departures...what doesn't stand up is that, assuming they were fully extended, you'd probably have about 9 trains leaving their origin stations prior to 0530. Of these, only 190 (dep. WAS 0315) and 110 (dep. WAS 0400) are salvagable in my mind, for the simple fact that the departures back up into the previous evening. 170 (dep. WAS 0452) could perhaps be stretched there as well, but that leaves 180, 130, 172, 86, 184, and 174 leaving at times that range from passable to awful. Extending some makes sense but, as I expressed to a DRPT representative one time, there may be the business at Norfolk for an 0500 train. There probably is not the business to justify an 0400 train, an 0500 train, and an 0600 train with nothing else.
Another issue with this is the fact that if a bunch of these trains are running overnight, there probably needs to be a serious discussion about at least getting 2-1 BC cars on them, if not adding actually adding sleepers to some of them. It isn't as big a deal for a departure at 0400, but if you're looking at a departure at 2300 or 0100 you have another story to deal with.
A final thought does come out from that point: If VA is running wacky-hour trains down to Lynchburg, that's probably about the right time to put in a call to North Carolina and seriously discuss extending that train to Charlotte if it isn't going to Roanoke.
In the end, if VA wants to have the levels of service that VHSR is promoting, there probably needs to be a serious discussion with Amtrak about (A) Virginia acquiring a few sets of their own equipment and (B) serious efforts to time trains a bit better so the state isn't overly loaded with middle-of-the-night departures.
=====================
As to the 90-minute time RVR-WAS, my understanding is that such a plan would be in the $1.8bn HSR proposal or thereabouts. A rough rundown would be here:
http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/studies/files/WashingtonDCStudyDetails.pdf
(Warning: The linked report is about 20 years old, so the costs...and probably the ridership estimates...are going to be questionable. Some of the projects have likely already happend; others would have been replaced by other projects as time has gone on.
"There are eighteen regional trains that now terminate north of the Potomac River that could be extended to Lynchburg, Newport News, and Norfolk, providing more frequent service along these lines, or the routes of these trains could be extended further to serve additional destinations. This would enable the Commonwealth to increase regional service levels 400 percent without having to invest in costly train equipment."
I'm going to assume that the equipment being referred to is the passenger cars (since you'd definitely need more locomotives). Extending those trains into Hampton Roads and Lynchburg adds roughly 6-8 hours of travel time to those trains' routes. Some of those trains have to turn at WAS. Let's take trains 151 and 111 (arriving in WAS at 0815 and 0845, respectively). Those are going to go back north later in the day. Now extend 151 to Norfolk (3:05 each way) and 111 to Lynchburg (4:05 each way). Assuming that the trains are basically continuously in motion and only allowing an hour to get the trains turned around and back out of the station at their terminus (and half an hour for the "toaster pop" at Washington):
-151 leaves Washington at 0845. It arrives in Norfolk at 1150 (right about when 67 is scheduled to hit NPN). It turns around at 1250, and gets back to Washington at 1555. It is probably ready to go out of Washington by 1630.
-111 leaves Washington at 0915. It arrives in Lynchburg at 1320, turns around at 1420, and gets back to Washington at 1825.
It should be obvious that these times are optimistic, and that allowing 2-3 hours to clean and turn the sets kills the ability to actually get them back to DC in a timely manner to use them. So Amtrak (or Virginia) will have to come up with some equipment to supplement what is already there if they want to extend everything.
The other problem that I've raised is that simply extending the existing Regional timetable deep into VA is a formula for lots of really badly-timed trains. I can take 3-4 trains with late-night departures...what doesn't stand up is that, assuming they were fully extended, you'd probably have about 9 trains leaving their origin stations prior to 0530. Of these, only 190 (dep. WAS 0315) and 110 (dep. WAS 0400) are salvagable in my mind, for the simple fact that the departures back up into the previous evening. 170 (dep. WAS 0452) could perhaps be stretched there as well, but that leaves 180, 130, 172, 86, 184, and 174 leaving at times that range from passable to awful. Extending some makes sense but, as I expressed to a DRPT representative one time, there may be the business at Norfolk for an 0500 train. There probably is not the business to justify an 0400 train, an 0500 train, and an 0600 train with nothing else.
Another issue with this is the fact that if a bunch of these trains are running overnight, there probably needs to be a serious discussion about at least getting 2-1 BC cars on them, if not adding actually adding sleepers to some of them. It isn't as big a deal for a departure at 0400, but if you're looking at a departure at 2300 or 0100 you have another story to deal with.
A final thought does come out from that point: If VA is running wacky-hour trains down to Lynchburg, that's probably about the right time to put in a call to North Carolina and seriously discuss extending that train to Charlotte if it isn't going to Roanoke.
In the end, if VA wants to have the levels of service that VHSR is promoting, there probably needs to be a serious discussion with Amtrak about (A) Virginia acquiring a few sets of their own equipment and (B) serious efforts to time trains a bit better so the state isn't overly loaded with middle-of-the-night departures.
=====================
As to the 90-minute time RVR-WAS, my understanding is that such a plan would be in the $1.8bn HSR proposal or thereabouts. A rough rundown would be here:
http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/studies/files/WashingtonDCStudyDetails.pdf
(Warning: The linked report is about 20 years old, so the costs...and probably the ridership estimates...are going to be questionable. Some of the projects have likely already happend; others would have been replaced by other projects as time has gone on.
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
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Glad that you agree with the things that struck me as odd in that document.
Thanks for the pointer to that RVR - WAS study.
Thanks for the pointer to that RVR - WAS study.
I think I've summed up the issue a bit more succinctly:
Right now, the vast majority of Regionals have runs that take between 3:30 (for a WAS-NYP Regional) and 8:00 (for a WAS-BOS Regional). A few may even stretch to a bit over 10:00 (for an RVR-BOS Regional).
At the moment, 174 runs 13:30 NFK-BOS, 94 runs 12:55 NPN-BOS, and 176 runs 12:34 LYH-BOS. These are the outliers (and I exclude 66/67 from consideration as it operates overnight by design). Extending a substantial number of trains into the 12:00-15:00 range would arguably alter the Regionals substantially, since you'd go from one operating as an overnight train to a large number doing so.
Right now, the vast majority of Regionals have runs that take between 3:30 (for a WAS-NYP Regional) and 8:00 (for a WAS-BOS Regional). A few may even stretch to a bit over 10:00 (for an RVR-BOS Regional).
At the moment, 174 runs 13:30 NFK-BOS, 94 runs 12:55 NPN-BOS, and 176 runs 12:34 LYH-BOS. These are the outliers (and I exclude 66/67 from consideration as it operates overnight by design). Extending a substantial number of trains into the 12:00-15:00 range would arguably alter the Regionals substantially, since you'd go from one operating as an overnight train to a large number doing so.
George Harris
Engineer
Fredericksburg north has more speed potential than Fredericksburg south. Fredericksburg south is almost continuous 2 degree curves, which means you aren't getting much above 70 mph. therefore unless you are doing new alignment (good luck with that) you are not going to be much faster than now. Electrification is not a panacea. Unless you are running very high speed or have frequent stops where the short term rating allows fast acceleration to make a lot of schedule difference there is really little to be gained to balance out the huge capital costs.
The night trains cry out for sleepers. In much of the world "everybody" except the bottom class cheap passengers have sleepers on night trains.
I would consider electrification to Atlanta to be well down the list of lines that to be electrified should it become the thing to do to pursue railroad electrification. Not to mention I would regard a lot of the money required to install electrification better spent in improvements in alignment.
The night trains cry out for sleepers. In much of the world "everybody" except the bottom class cheap passengers have sleepers on night trains.
I would consider electrification to Atlanta to be well down the list of lines that to be electrified should it become the thing to do to pursue railroad electrification. Not to mention I would regard a lot of the money required to install electrification better spent in improvements in alignment.
MattW
Conductor
I don't think Atlanta will see electrification until it decides to do a Denver Fastracks for commuter rail oh about the year 2050. I would put electrification of the Crescent route/SEHSR route well past that. By then, NS might seriously consider electrification of its Crescent Corridor (only roughly the same as the route of Amtrak's Crescent), though I would expect the Crescent Corridor's northern alignment to be the first candidate over the current route of the Crescent. Yes, the year was pulled out of my hat.
Worthwhile question in response to that: What if you work within the present alignment to roughly Fredericksburg, and then go with a new alignment south of there?
The funds for adding a second train service to Lynchburg is in the VA FY15 Six Year Improvement Program budget. So it is moved from being talked about to going to happen. Adding a second Regional got tied in with the cancellation of the controversial $230 million Rt. 29 bypass around Charlottesville. After decades of debate, the CTB may have finally driven a stake through the heart of the bypass project (with an assist from the FHWA). Charlottesville Tomorrow: Western Bypass funding eliminated; CTB supports other U.S. 29 projects
Excerpt on the second Lynchburger:
Gov. McAuliffe press release on the Six Year Improvement Plan project and highlights. The rail related highlights:
Excerpt on the second Lynchburger:
So by 2017, there should be a daily Regional to Roanoke and a second one terminating at Lynchburg. Add a daily Cardinal and CVS could have 4 daily trains in 2017.
Gov. McAuliffe press release on the Six Year Improvement Plan project and highlights. The rail related highlights:
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The SYIP has both news and non-news:
http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/about/files/FY15%20SYIP%206-4-2014.pdf
The biggest piece of news in it is the "State Amtrak Operating Credit" and the change in the Lynchburger projections. At a glance the former seems to write out most of the operating subsidy needs (there's a credit of just over $4m vs. budgeted subsidy needs of nearly $5.4m); this suggests that VA is either (A) using intensely conservative numbers for the operating subsidies or (B) not counting the seat charges for traffic going past Washington against the subsidy need. My guess is a bit of both. Do note that the smaller figure ($1.4m net of the credit) is closer in line with what Amtrak's reports have been indicating if I recall right. On a similar note, the second point is interesting...the estimated profit on the Lynchburger was $423,775...which is held up in the current report, albeit amid the credit. However, for FY15 the profit is estimated at $579,730 vs. last year's estimate of $214,725. The other numbers got messed around with (capital is less expensive but operating is more expensive), but I do expect to see a lot of monkey business with the subsidy budget and operating credits for quite a while.
Two other details: First, they formally programmed the Bland Blvd. station into the SYIP, and pulled the funding from this pot. That's slightly frustrating, since I believe it had been previously funded from another pot of money. Second, the two additional trains to Norfolk seem to be hitting some schedule slip...the project was supposed to wrap in FY18 last year, and it is FY19 this year.
http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/about/files/FY15%20SYIP%206-4-2014.pdf
The biggest piece of news in it is the "State Amtrak Operating Credit" and the change in the Lynchburger projections. At a glance the former seems to write out most of the operating subsidy needs (there's a credit of just over $4m vs. budgeted subsidy needs of nearly $5.4m); this suggests that VA is either (A) using intensely conservative numbers for the operating subsidies or (B) not counting the seat charges for traffic going past Washington against the subsidy need. My guess is a bit of both. Do note that the smaller figure ($1.4m net of the credit) is closer in line with what Amtrak's reports have been indicating if I recall right. On a similar note, the second point is interesting...the estimated profit on the Lynchburger was $423,775...which is held up in the current report, albeit amid the credit. However, for FY15 the profit is estimated at $579,730 vs. last year's estimate of $214,725. The other numbers got messed around with (capital is less expensive but operating is more expensive), but I do expect to see a lot of monkey business with the subsidy budget and operating credits for quite a while.
Two other details: First, they formally programmed the Bland Blvd. station into the SYIP, and pulled the funding from this pot. That's slightly frustrating, since I believe it had been previously funded from another pot of money. Second, the two additional trains to Norfolk seem to be hitting some schedule slip...the project was supposed to wrap in FY18 last year, and it is FY19 this year.
18 Jun 2014
Governor Terry McAuliffe announced today that the public was heard and their transportation priorities were carefully considered, resulting in adjustments to the final Six-Year Improvement Program. The Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) approved the program, which allocates $13.1 billion to highway, road, bridge, rail, transit, bicycle/pedestrian paths and other transportation improvements throughout Virginia over a six year period beginning July 1, 2014
Extending the Tide to VA Beach, Adding 2 more Trains to Norfolk, funding another train to Lynchburg.
LINK
Governor Terry McAuliffe announced today that the public was heard and their transportation priorities were carefully considered, resulting in adjustments to the final Six-Year Improvement Program. The Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) approved the program, which allocates $13.1 billion to highway, road, bridge, rail, transit, bicycle/pedestrian paths and other transportation improvements throughout Virginia over a six year period beginning July 1, 2014
Extending the Tide to VA Beach, Adding 2 more Trains to Norfolk, funding another train to Lynchburg.
LINK
neroden
Engineer
"Improvements Richmond to Petersburg for 2 train extension to Norfolk" has *spectacular* amounts of money scheduled for it. $82.3 million, nearly as much as the Roanoake extension. For that much, we should get the trains going through Richmond Main St. Do we, or is this money being spent on the route which bypasses Richmond Main St.? Do you know?
...edit: I see, after some googling. It's entirely for replacing the Appomattox River bridge in Petersburg. Bleah. Free money for CSX.
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That was the price for three round-trip slots. If I'm not mistaken, even when you take into account the improvements for Norfolk Southern over the last few years, Virginia just short of stole those slots compared with what those slots "should" be going for.
Edit: The bridge is also, if I'm not mistaken, a major bottleneck. I think that has been on the agenda for a few years, too.
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neroden
Engineer
Hey, I have nothing against building a new bridge, but the state should own that bridge if they're gonna do it. CSX can have trackage rights.
I'm not sure what advantage owning the bridge would convey to the state. Dispatching would be controlled by CSX (I'm just imagining the state having some dispatcher in an office handling track control for a single bridge because of a dispute between the state and CSX), the bridge would be captive to CSX (since CSX would still own the approaches), etc. The only use I can think of would be theoretically to arrange a property swap down the line, and owning the bridge might expose the state to some form of liability.
jis
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Administator
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Absent enough money to buy a new ROW or enough political will and financial ability to buy out the CSX ROW using eminent domain, the best that one can do is strike better deals with CSX for passenger ops in exchange for money to help them improve the ROW. California was able to do so with UP. Given where we are it would behoove VA to explore similar possibilities with CSX perhaps in the broader context of SEHSR, which apparently might land up sharing this part?
neroden
Engineer
You gotta buy things a bit at a time. And it helps if you don't give away money to the company you're trying to buy things from.
The scenario I'm *expecting* is that the state gives CSX a lot of money for a bridge, CSX builds and owns the bridge, and then CSX unreasonably refuses to allow the addition of more passenger trains (beyond the 2 in the contract) and starts delaying all the trains which are already running, *just cause it can*. This has been the behavior of various Class Is at various times in the past, and CP quite recently.
If you own some of the track -- as North Carolina does -- you have a big stick to threaten them with if they act unreasonable. As NC discovered, you don't actually have to carry through on your threats, either; the class Is start behaving politely as soon as they realize the state has leverage over them.
Also, the current management of CSX may be friendly, but that's no guarantee of the behavior of future management. The Class Is are extremely arrogant and believe that they can ignore state law (even the laws which they actually are subject to legally) -- this is clear in many STB filings. What they can't ignore, ever, is state ownership of the rails they're running on.
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The point is taken, at least broadly. Technically it's two additional trains per day that are to be allowed...that line already has 5x daily trains (Palmetto, Meteor, Star, Carolinian, and Norfolk #1). With that said...as a serious question, where does the S-Line break off in terms of what SEHSR wants to do? I ask because if I'm not mistaken, I think Virginia actually does want to get off the A-Line for the most part.
This dovetails with our other discussion, but from what I can tell:
-VA wants to have semi-dedicated passenger tracks from Washington south to Richmond, and probably through to the NC border. There's a plan to add a third track to the RF&P that would be passenger-focused.
-There are also possible plans of getting dedicated trackage from Petersburg into Norfolk, though that is a good distance off because NS has been highly cooperative.
-The Newport News line and Lynchburg line just don't have the projected train frequencies right now to justify taking over hundreds of miles of track between them for 2-4 trains per day on each line. The RF&P has plans for massive numbers of passenger trains, and the line into Norfolk should get up into the 6x daily range. The Peninsula Sub has 2x daily (with plans for a third if we can ever get a train extended from DC to accommodate it); the Lynchburger route has the Lynchburger (ours), the Crescent (Amtrak's), the Cardinal (ugh), and now a second Lynchburger (ours). You'd really need to get up to 4-5x daily state trains to justify anything along there...and like I said, NS and the state have an unusually good relationship.
This dovetails with our other discussion, but from what I can tell:
-VA wants to have semi-dedicated passenger tracks from Washington south to Richmond, and probably through to the NC border. There's a plan to add a third track to the RF&P that would be passenger-focused.
-There are also possible plans of getting dedicated trackage from Petersburg into Norfolk, though that is a good distance off because NS has been highly cooperative.
-The Newport News line and Lynchburg line just don't have the projected train frequencies right now to justify taking over hundreds of miles of track between them for 2-4 trains per day on each line. The RF&P has plans for massive numbers of passenger trains, and the line into Norfolk should get up into the 6x daily range. The Peninsula Sub has 2x daily (with plans for a third if we can ever get a train extended from DC to accommodate it); the Lynchburger route has the Lynchburger (ours), the Crescent (Amtrak's), the Cardinal (ugh), and now a second Lynchburger (ours). You'd really need to get up to 4-5x daily state trains to justify anything along there...and like I said, NS and the state have an unusually good relationship.
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