I was perusing the Amtrak timetable this evening, and I noticed that Franconia-Springfield, VA, is no longer listed as an Amtrak station, and doesn't appear in the Northeast Corridor schedules. When did it get dropped as a stop?
Frankly I never understood why Amtrak stopped at Franconia in the first place. Amtrak is intercity service, not local milk run. Alexandria (King Street) is a short Metro ride from Franconia.It's only 2 stops from ALX on the the blue line, and it had very low ridership (only 2,598 in FY2008). Very few trains stopped there, anyway. Plus we have have the Lynchburg train stopping at Burke Centre now, which is more convenient for the majority of Fairfax County than Franconia ever was.
I just found it interesting that around the same time that Amtrak added service to what had been a VRE-only station (Burke Center) on the Lynchburg Northeast Regional run, they dropped service to another VRE/WMATA station (Franconia-Springfield) while adding an additional Richmond Northeast Regional run.Frankly I never understood why Amtrak stopped at Franconia in the first place. Amtrak is intercity service, not local milk run. Alexandria (King Street) is a short Metro ride from Franconia.It's only 2 stops from ALX on the the blue line, and it had very low ridership (only 2,598 in FY2008). Very few trains stopped there, anyway. Plus we have have the Lynchburg train stopping at Burke Centre now, which is more convenient for the majority of Fairfax County than Franconia ever was.
Both the Regional service to Lynchburg which started last October and the additional Regional to Richmond which started in July were funded by Virginia. There may have been a trade-off agreement between Virginia & Amtrak to add the Amtrak stop at Burke while dropping the lightly used (for Amtrak) Franconia stop. With the additional daily Regional service on the busy RF&P line, they may have also dropped Amtrak stops at Franconia to reduce traffic blockages at the station. Besides, as pointed out, the station is only 2 DC Metro stops south from the Alexandria station on the Blue line. Not hard to get to if you are taking Amtrak to or from Alexandria.I just found it interesting that around the same time that Amtrak added service to what had been a VRE-only station (Burke Center) on the Lynchburg Northeast Regional run, they dropped service to another VRE/WMATA station (Franconia-Springfield) while adding an additional Richmond Northeast Regional run.
There is some limited parking at the Amtrak and Metro stations. But if it longer term parking you are looking for, the King Street metro station is only 2 stops away from Reagan National Airport on the Blue & Yellow line trains. Wouldn't be too difficult to park at the airport and take Metro to the King Street / Alexandria station. Parking at Reagan National is not cheap, but it is an option.IIRC the only train to stop at Franconia-Springfield recently is/was 66/67. It's unfortunate, since that leaves Alexandria (King Street) as the one stop in Northern VA with frequent Amtrak service, and that stop has no parking at all.
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