“Commuter Crossroads”—Commuting by Train
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Commuting by bus
Commuting by bicycling and walking
Commuting by rapid transit and trolley
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Commuter Crossroads main page
“Commuter Crossroads”—Commuting by Train
Commuting by bus
Commuting by bicycling and walking
Commuting by rapid transit and trolley
Commuting by car
More Commuter Crossroads topics
Blank Looks From VRE
VRE Pushes Engine Repairs
What Station Is This Anyway?
CSX Wants a ‘Corridor of the Future’
VRE’s New Gallery Cars
Quantico Café Makes a Friendly Station
VRE Communications Fall Short
VRE’s 2006 Ridership Drop
Picture 100 Miles of Good Railroad
Ticket Validation Problems Dog VRE Riders
VRE Should Serve the Weekend Market Too
VRE’s Uncooperative Ticket Machines
VRE’s Third Annual Fare Increase
CSX Says It Can Handle Freight and Passengers
Rail Lines for the Future
Next Stop, Crystal City—or the Twilight Zone?
Slow, Safe Trains
13 Years of VRE at Fredericksburg
Who Rides VRE?
Smart Growth May Arrive at Leeland Station
Controversial Cab Cars Up Front
Could a Grade-Crossing Suicide Cause a VRE Wreck?
CSX Track Capacity Will Expand
Quiet! It’s Santa
VRE Fares Are About Average
Delays Waste Rail Commuters’ Time Too
VRE’s Core Business
VRE Communications Disappoint
Getting to Work Without VRE
Left Behind, Parts I and II
VRE Holiday Service Cuts Hurt Riders
VRE Service Sliding Downhill
Quiet Cars: Some People Are Unclear on the Concept
VRE Compared With New Jersey Transit
Fredericksburg Station Needs Better Signs
Will We Learn From Winter Woes?
VRE Reaches Higher to Accommodate Passengers
VRE’s Strategy to Accommodate Growth
It’s High Time for Spotsylvania to Get on Board VRE
Evening on the Train With George
Winter Weather Reveals Transport
Troubles
Watch Out for Bowling Balls on VRE
(April 2, 2000).
2,300 HP Takes You to Work (March 5, 2000).
How Fast Is VRE? (Feb. 6, 2000).
VRE’s Metro Connection (Jan. 9, 2000).
Christmas Spirit Rides the Rails
(Dec. 12, 1999).
Union Works to Give VRE Riders a Better
Trip
Local Railroad Control Needed in
Emergencies
The Crew Makes or Breaks a Train Trip
(March 28, 1999).
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
“Train 306 on time,” proclaimed the information screen at the Fredericksburg railroad station, until
Half an hour went by with no word of the train and no sign of it either. When the 7:15 train was almost due, a VRE train pulled into the station, but I had no idea whether it was the 7:15 or the long-lost 6:35 until the crew announced that it would run express to Quantico and that the 7:15 would be along presently and make all stops.
A week later I was up in Quantico waiting for
Some passengers approached the café counter to ask proprietor Steve Junkersfeld where train 308 was. Was it late? Had it already left? He had the answer, plus some inside information: he expected the crew to call with a coffee order when the train was a few miles away. Presently the phone rang, and a few minutes after that, we heard 308 whistling as it neared the station.
For years, VRE passengers had to put up with information screens that were almost always blank. The new system has information, but not enough, and sometimes not at all when riders need it most.
But in Philadelphia, if you board Amtrak at
Another welcome addition would be extension of the Rail Time map to show the line south of Fredericksburg, where VRE trains run empty because of the political structure of public transportation in Virginia. Passengers waiting for a delayed VRE train in Fredericksburg could see whether the train was still south of the city, and passengers arriving a few minutes late could see whether the train had left. Scrolling text at the bottom could give details for each train.
The Rail Time map would be a whole lot better than the sometimes blank, sometimes erroneous information screens VRE is displaying at its stations now. It’s being done in Quantico, and I believe it could be done in Fredericksburg.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
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| A VRE engine pushes a deadhead train north through Fredericksburg. |
Virginia Railway Express is pushing its aging locomotive fleet through heavy overhauls, sending one at a time to be worked on in the Norfolk Southern repair shops in Altoona, Pa., according to VRE spokesman Mark Roeber. The work on the diesel engine or prime mover in each locomotive includes replacing the pistons and turbochargers. Of the
In addition, VRE has been sending the HEP (for “head-end power”) generators to Altoona for overhauls. The HEP unit is a separate generator on the locomotive; it supplies electrical power to the rest of the train for lighting, heating, air conditioning and other electrical systems. Each fall, VRE does a “universal check” on the HEP generators to make sure they are ready for winter. The most recent universal check found more things wrong than expected, especially in the older locomotives. As of mid-July, one locomotive was sidelined awaiting a new HEP generator, but after that, VRE expected to get “ahead of the curve,” said Roeber, and have a spare HEP generator available.
VRE also tries to have one “protect” engine available for the Fredericksburg line and another for the Manassas line available during rush hour. When you see a train of only five coaches with a locomotive at the front of the train and another at the rear, one of them is probably the protect engine. However, with locomotives suffering mechanical failure, VRE hasn’t always had protect engines available to back up the others, and mechanical failures have been making up a significant portion of VRE delays. In June, six VRE trains were delayed and another three were canceled owing to mechanical problems, according to the VRE website.
The engines haven’t been the only problem. The new Nippon-Sharyo cab cars experienced some problems with the wheelchair lifts not completely retracting after use—at least that’s what the computer said, and the computer would not let the train move. That problem has been ironed out, said Roeber.
VRE’s older coaches have been experiencing problems too, particularly with the air conditioning. Given their age
More new gallery cars are already on order, with delivery expected beginning next winter.
As for the locomotive fleet, VRE is trying to fix and patch things up so that they will work until new engines arrive, said Roeber, but that is more than two years away. However, VRE now has money in hand to purchase new locomotives: money from the state and from local matching funds. This month the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority voted to levy taxes for new transportation projects, one of which is new VRE locomotives. VRE expects to issue a request for proposals in October, said Roeber, with delivery about two years later.
The new locomotives will have higher horsepower and greater HEP capacity so that they can handle longer trains, VRE chief executive officer Dale Zehner told the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons on
In the meantime, VRE’s operations board has authorized the leasing of three more locomotives. This will not only give VRE more than enough protect engines, said Roeber, it will let VRE put two locomotives rather than one on some more of the longer trains.
Getting reliable locomotives on all its trains is crucial to rebuilding VRE ridership, and that’s going to take constant work by VRE for the next two years and beyond.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
“Now at Union Station,” said the Virginia Railway Express automated voice. “This is Fredericksburg line train three-eleven. This is Fredericksburg line train three-eleven. Next station: Fredericksburg.”
This really would be an express if we were leaving Union Station and Fredericksburg were the next stop. But, no, this was not Union Station in Washington, DC. We had just left Leeland Road station in Stafford. VRE’s announcement robots often get mixed up. But cut them some slack: they’re flying blind. Unlike the
One evening the robot recited the whole list of stations in a few minutes. “Next station: L’Enfant. Next station: Crystal City. Next station:
I miss the days when the crew would walk through the train calling out the station stops. Long ago, when I commuted on the New York & Long Branch, the conductor and trainmen would make the announcements in every coach of a
Not that the system was perfect. Conductor William Moedinger, writing in the June 1976 Trains magazine, recalled boarding a train in Leesville, La., where the crew called out, “Oboeshreepoe!” He wasn’t sure he had gotten onto the right train, but after he arrived in Shreveport, La., he figured he had heard the local version of “All aboard for Shreveport.”
VRE’s robots at least enunciate well, but when they call out the wrong stations, that is not an advantage, and sometimes the robots just make beeping noises instead of saying words. When the robots start babbling, I wish the crews would quickly unplug them, although maybe, like
I think the crews could find time to make the announcements, upstairs and downstairs. Unlike the days of yore on the New York & Long Branch, the stations are 5 to
But there may be hope for the announcement robots. Back when clocks in automobiles were notorious for losing time, people used to ask, “If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they make a car clock that works?” We can no longer send anybody to the moon, but somewhere along the line somebody did invent a car clock that works.
Maybe some morning I will wake up to find that somebody has invented a robot that can make accurate station announcements. Maybe it will sell tickets too. Until then, VRE could resurrect the old, human way of announcing stations.
By Steve Dunham
This content appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
CSX, the railroad over which Virginia Railway Express and Amtrak trains run between Washington, DC, and Fredericksburg, wants its Washington-Miami line to be a “corridor of the future”:
This would require a huge investment, and that’s where the Corridors of the Future Program comes in. Last year the
“Reducing congestion” sounds like VRE’s mission of “traffic mitigation,” which in plain English seems to say that the purpose of VRE and the Corridors of the Future Program is to make driving easier, and I believe that’s what federal transportation policy focuses on. However, if CSX and the Commonwealth of Virginia can get a slice of that pie and expand transportation choices, making train travel and freight movement easier and more efficient too, let’s go for it. The application deadline for the program was April 2, so right now the Transportation Department should be selecting up to five finalists.
If CSX is one of them, it has a plan for turning its Washington-Miami line into a corridor of the future:
First, complete the third track between Washington and Richmond, except where major, expensive projects are needed—Ashland, where two tracks run down the middle of the main street; Fredericksburg, with its crossing of the Rappahannock River and elevated trackage above four streets; and the bridges over Aquia Creek and the Potomac River.
The second step would be to tackle those bigger, more expensive projects.
The third step would be to build the additional track between Washington and Miami and to close or create alternatives for those 1,700 grade crossings.
“The DC to Richmond Third Track Feasibility Study provides the path for completion” of the project north of Richmond, said Jay Westbrook, CSX Assistant Vice President for Public-Private Partnerships. It calls for completing the capacity-expanding projects funded in 2000; the last piece of that group of improvements is to construct about 7 more miles of third track north of Springfield and just south of the Potomac River. The study also listed the steps needed to plan further construction: alternatives analysis, environmental review, agreements between CSX and the governments involved and a dedicated source of funding for capital and operating costs.
“Federal support is the key,” said Westbrook. If Washington-Miami becomes a federally funded corridor of the future, then the next steps, he said, are to “set realistic expectations during current construction, align stakeholders around a common plan, seek consensus and action on” the most beneficial projects to be tackled first, “perform preliminary engineering,” “refine cost estimates, and organize and energize all stakeholders to” be advocates for the creating the corridor.
In highway terms, that route is the
By Steve Dunham
This conteny appeared in two columns in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
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The first of the new Virginia Railway Express gallery cars are in service, and they provide a better ride than some of the coaches now in use. They have built-in wheelchair lifts, rest rooms, bicycle storage (bring your own bungee straps to tie down your bike), cup holders at every seat, and automatic doors, so that normally all doors will open at every station, enabling faster loading and unloading of passengers. They also have a rack for bigger pieces of luggage; those of us who have taken VRE to the airport or to board an Amtrak train in Washington will be glad to have a place to stow our baggage.
The new cars have a much smoother, quieter ride than the old gallery cars, the worst of which are loud and rough riding, with thinly cushioned seats.
The new cars, like the other gallery cars, have doors and an entrance vestibule in the center of the car; on either side are two sections for passenger seating. Stairways next to the central vestibule lead up to the galleries. (Gallery cars have seating on two levels, but they are not double-deck cars: the upper level is like a balcony running down each side of the car.)
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Each car seats 123 passengers, and the seating arrangement is better than in the used gallery cars that VRE purchased from Illinois. Upstairs, the older cars have a lot of folding single seats without armrests, facing the aisle. They have no place to rest your head or your arms and no room to stretch out. Your back is toward the window. Getting out of them at your station requires you to squeeze past other riders.
The upper-level seats on the new cars all face the stairway; your feet aren’t in the aisle, the window is on your left or right, and you have a little room to stretch out. I didn’t like two things about the upper-level seats, however: There are no arm rests, and when the car swayed (when the train changed from one track to another, for example), I had to brace myself against the seat ahead, reach out and hold the railing, or lean against the window. Also, there are no ticket holders on the upper level. I put my ticket in the cup holder, but I’m not sure the conductor downstairs could see it. If not, this means that anyone asleep upstairs will have to wake up and display a ticket when the conductor comes through, unless the conductor comes upstairs to check tickets, and most conductors don’t.
At least one teething problem has cropped up: when the wheelchair lift at the middle doors is retracted, the car’s computer does not always believe it. On
The 11 new cars built by Nippon Sharyo are all cab cars: at one end they have a compartment for the engineer to drive the train when the locomotive is pushing (usually northbound). The new cars are replacing the single-level cab cars that, with the rest of VRE’s single-deck fleet, have been sold to Connecticut.
Besides the 11 new cab cars, VRE has exercised an option to purchase
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in slightly different form in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
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He has six coffee pots, but only one ticket machine, he notes, although there are VRE machines out on the platform. Unlike those machines, however, the café accepts Metrocheks and offers the full range of VRE tickets: the standard one-way, five-day, ten-trip and monthly fares as well as senior and student discounted tickets and monthly Transit Link Cards good on the Washington Metro rail system.
Steve’s manager, Susana Allik, is there too, along with assistant Liz Boyles. Business is brisk as riders make their purchases and then fill up the tables, chairs and original station benches to await a Virginia Railway Express or Amtrak train heading north. A monitor at the counter displays the map on the VRE website showing the position of each train. As one arrives, people stream out to the platform, and then things are quiet for about
Steve assists passengers continually, answering questions about Amtrak, Metro, and VRE. He was a VRE commuter himself from 1994 to 2000.
This scene happens seven times each weekday morning, and as rush hour winds down, Steve heads off to his day job in Dumfries, but the café and the station are open all day, from
After two months of work, he had the Whistle Stop Café ready for business. “I wanted the operation to look very professional,” he said, and it does. It has clean restrooms and broadband
The station was surrounded by television crews on
Business has grown steadily, and Steve has added menu items such as espresso and, in warm weather, “the best soft-serve ice cream in northern Virginia.”
People ask whether the café is a franchise; it’s not, but Steve takes it as a compliment. “They like us, like our service.” The Virginia Association of Railway Patrons held its annual meeting there on Saturday,
To Steve Junkersfeld, the Whistle Stop Café in the Quantico station is an accomplishment, a hobby, something he loves. “If I pay the salaries, pay the bills, but don’t make a nickel, I’m happy,” he said. And as he greets the passengers, answers questions, and chats with people, he looks happy.
Postscript: In January 2007, VRE told its passengers that water in the Town of Quantico had unsafe levels of haloacetic acid and that residents had been cautioned against drinking it. However, Steve Junkersfeld, owner of the Whistle Stop Café in the Quantico station, says that all the water used in the café goes through a commercial filtration system. He talked to the local company that provided the system and they assured him that the water is totally safe to drink.
The Quantico waiting room
Quantico station
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
The silence was ominous. As we waited for the 7:15 Virginia Railway Express train to Washington nine days ago, the passengers at Fredericksburg huddled toward the side of the platform that had some shelter from the blowing rain. Five minutes went by, then 10, with no announcements from VRE about the 7:15 train. Was it late? How late? Canceled? Eventually it showed up and we all got on, and the train left the station
It could have been worse. It has been worse. I’ve waited at the station for a train that was half an hour overdue, only to finally hear an announcement that the train wasn’t running at all or that VRE did not know when it would run. An announcement like that is bad enough, but if we have to hear it, I would rather know promptly. But the information needs to be correct.
One night this summer, as I was waiting for the overdue 6:15 train in Crystal City, VRE announced that the next train would be a Manassas line train, with
One Friday morning, VRE was belatedly announcing delays of an hour, but my train (again I was riding the hard-luck 7:15 out of Fredericksburg) was over two hours late into Alexandria. The crew had little information, but they managed to obtain more from passengers who were getting VRE email announcements on their computers.
Speaking of VRE email, some of it provides harmless entertainment. In June, VRE commuters got a “Security Reminder” that would help us “spot suspicious persons.” I would certainly report a person “having visible wires or an explosive belt protruding from under his or her clothing.” Two “other clothing related indicators
Standing on the platform in Crystal City one evening, I realized I was standing with both hands in my pockets in full view of a security camera. Then I looked around and saw that lots of commuters had their hands in their pockets. I felt like I was getting ready to board the Terrorist Express. And bulges around the midsection? Not I (well, a little). The other passengers looked like a bomb squad, and not a police bomb squad.
Then there’s the matter of blaming CSX. After the heavy rains that swamped the Washington area and left Fredericksburg soggy, VRE announced that CSX had imposed flood restrictions, limiting evening trains to
Many of the VRE delays in the past couple of years can be laid at CSX’s door, but communicating them to passengers and crews is VRE’s job, one it hasn’t been doing well.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
“Virginia Railway Express has the ominous distinction of being the only commuter [rail]road that is suffering a decline in ridership during a time of unprecedented gasoline prices when most commuter lines and Amtrak corridors are experiencing record patronage,” wrote Lee Gregory in the September issue of Railpace Newsmagazine in his “Allegheny Observer” column. Falling numbers of riders, he wrote, “may lead to a fare increase—which will further depress ridership.”
Late trains, broken-down trains, canceled trains, and generally unreliable service have been driving passengers away. Many of us cringe when we hear the VRE loudspeakers crackle to life with the words “May I have your attention please.”
Sometimes the message is sort of neutral: VRE will celebrate Labor Day by not running any trains. Whoopee.
Often the message is bad news: A train is short one car, and “some crowding may occur.” Or a train is late, or a train is canceled.
Too often the message concludes with a recommendation that passengers “seek alternate transportation.” A lot of them have been doing exactly that.
It’s not surprising, not only because the quality of VRE service has dropped, but because VRE has concentrated on attracting riders who do have another choice. It has defined its mission as “traffic mitigation,” meaning that the people it wants on board its trains are people who have a car and otherwise would drive.
Although I like trains and hate driving, the only thing keeping me on VRE this summer was the high cost of driving. Riding VRE was so frustrating and time consuming (my commuting time was sometimes
Now gas prices appear to be falling. Having recruited mostly passengers who have another way to get to work, VRE will be hard put not to lose even more riders, because some of VRE’s problems aren’t going away anytime soon.
VRE is purchasing brand-new coaches, which is nice, but most of VRE’s canceled trains aren’t caused by broken-down coaches. A far more serious problem is locomotive failures. VRE’s diesel locomotives were generally built circa the 1970s, and most of them have been remanufactured since then: taken apart, worn parts replaced, new components installed, systems upgraded. These rebuilt locomotives can last a long time, but the rebuilding was done 10 to
I wish VRE were buying new locomotives instead of new coaches. I’d rather commute in an old coach pulled by a new locomotive than in a brand-new coach pulled by an old engine.
Other persistent problems are VRE’s unreliable ticket machines, train-status displays that often are blank, and other poor communications.
I would like to see VRE succeed, not just in its narrowly defined mission of traffic mitigation, but as part of an integrated transportation system that gives people attractive, affordable transportation choices throughout Virginia. But VRE service right now is not attractive. It is merely cheaper than driving, and often less trouble, yet if VRE keeps telling its riders to seek alternate transportation, they surely will.
By Steve Dunham
This content appeared in two columns in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
Construction is under way to allow electric trains to travel at
The route has some striking similarities to the
In Pennsylvania, as in Virginia, rail passenger service in much of the state is sparse. Pittsburgh, like Newport News, has four trains a day. Erie, like Charlottesville, has two. Scranton, like Roanoke, has none.
There are some significant differences, too: Amtrak owns the railroad between Harrisburg and Philadelphia, whereas a private railroad, CSX, owns the Richmond-Washington line. The apparatus for electrically powered trains is in place between Harrisburg and Philadelphia (although it dates to the 1930s, and it had fallen into disuse on the western two-thirds of the line, outside commuter train territory). And the route in Pennsylvania was built with four tracks, partly to separate freight and passenger trains, whereas the line in Virginia has only two tracks over most of its length. Another big difference is the commuter train service. Between Paoli, Pa., and Philadelphia, commuter trains run all day long, seven days a week, and on weekdays there’s a train every half hour, and in rush hour about every ten minutes. Virginia Railway Express operates a handful of weekday rush-hour trains between Fredericksburg and Washington.
Yet even these differences may fade. On the Richmond-Washington line, the Commonwealth of Virginia is adding tracks it will own, and future scarcity of oil may well prompt the electrification of the CSX mainline. And public demand for transportation alternatives should lead to frequent commuter trains running on improved infrastructure between Fredericksburg and Washington.
But one big difference remains: Pennsylvania has a serious budget for public transportation and a determination to create better service. Virginia is not that serious about it. That is why right now Virginia is improving the mainline between its capital and the nation’s capital by building a bridge over Quantico Creek (a few other small projects are done or funded), while Pennsylvania is improving the mainline between its capital and its largest city by restoring the electrical system for
One state’s serious budget and determination are why next year you could board an electric train in Lancaster, Pa., and ride at
Postscript: in November (the first full month of operating under the new, faster schedules), Amtrak had trouble running on time. In the February issue of Railpace magazine, Andy Kirk wrote that the
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
“Many fellow VRE riders have fallen victim of the distorted discretion of a conductor who will write a summons before you can say ‘all aboard,’” wrote one reader. “While many at VRE may feel that their are no excuses for not validating a ticket, we all know that mitigating circumstances are real and valid” sometimes. “The current law gives the conductor too much
The law ordains a minimum
VRE’s interpretation of the law, in practice, seems to be that if you purchase a ticket but don’t have it stamped in the validating machine, you haven’t paid the posted fare. VRE’s free ride certificates are also considered payment, but twice in the past ten months, VRE has reversed its policy as to whether the free ride certificates must be validated by machine, owing to the machines’ frequent breakdowns and sometime inability to read the information on the free ride certificates. That’s twice in ten months. In the ten years I’ve been commuting on its trains, VRE has gone back and forth on this policy so many times that I’ve lost count.
Two people told me that the policy changed while they were out of the country. If they return in the middle of a month, they are especially likely to use free ride certificates, and they are less likely to know the current policy.
Other victims of the policy are infrequent riders or passengers using a different station from their usual one. Michael Testerman, president of the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons and veteran train rider, was about to board a VRE train at Washington Union Station one day—a trip he doesn’t make often, because he lives in Richmond—when he realized that there are no longer any validating machines on the platforms. He didn’t have time to go back up to the concourse where the machines are located. He boarded the train hoping for clemency, but he had paid the fare.
With shifting validation policies and unreliable validating machines, “we all know that mitigating circumstances are real and valid” sometimes, as my correspondent put it. But failure to pay, as defined by VRE, means a
What about issuing a written warning the first time? With so many passengers, it’s hard for conductors to tell whether it’s someone’s first time without a validated ticket. But the court should be able to tell whether a person has been there before charged with the same offense. One answer would seem to be lowering the minimum fine to something discouraging but not draconian, say $15. That would be enough to make me kick myself for forgetting to validate a ticket but not enough to make me picket VRE headquarters. (I’ve never gotten a summons from VRE, though I have sometimes forgotten to validate a ticket or been unable to find a working machine.) The law’s maximum of $250 could stand for repeat offenders.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
It’s time to bring affordable weekend train service back to Fredericksburg. Right now your only choices for traveling to northern Virginia or Washington, DC, on a weekend are to drive all the way (assuming you have a license and a car), drive about
Two years ago this week, Virginia Railway Express stopped letting its passengers use 10-trip and monthly tickets to ride Amtrak trains on weekends. It was a budget-cutting move, but it couldn’t have saved a lot of money because VRE said that not a lot of passengers were using the weekend service anyway.
Those who were using it stated (at public hearings) that they worked on weekends, traveled on weekends, or wanted to go to the Washington area for recreation, family visits, or other personal reasons. Some were willing to pay more (but not $50 for a round trip on Amtrak) to take the train on weekends. A lot of them used VRE during the week but could not use the monthly or five-day tickets with their work schedules that included weekends; they would have had to use more expensive single-ride and
This is the opposite result from what VRE’s fare policy should be achieving. With poor air quality and high gas prices in northern Virginia, anyone who would rather take the train than drive should be encouraged. Even within VRE’s narrowly defined mission of traffic mitigation, there is plenty of work to be done on weekends. Almost every Saturday and Sunday afternoon and evening,
Furthermore, our public investment in VRE trains and stations and in track improvements is mostly idle on the weekends. To save some operating expense, the capital sits idle, and this policy pushes more vehicles onto the roads and more pollution into the air while reducing mobility for the public.
At a Meet the Management session, VRE’s CEO, Dale Zehner, said that fares were paying for about 70% of operations. With ridership slumping somewhat, that number may have gone down a bit. When VRE passengers ride Amtrak trains, the number is in the same ballpark, said Zehner, because VRE gets something like $5 one way from each multiple-ride ticket holder on average, pays $10 a head for VRE riders using Amtrak trains and collects a
Allowing VRE passengers to pay the surcharge and ride Amtrak on weekends would not only benefit the public, it could help boost VRE weekday ridership, because some of those people whose days off from work fall on weekdays rather than weekends could take the train to work all the time. People who travel to or from the airport on weekends could take the train both ways, whereas now they are likely to drive both ways because VRE isn’t available on weekends.
If VRE with its corset-tight budget can’t afford this, then make the weekend surcharge $5 (or $4: two step-up tickets). VRE surely can afford to break even on its weekend passengers. With today’s gas prices, a
Actual VRE trains on weekends are years in the future, because like all other government-funded transportation needs (such as highways and air traffic control) they cost money. Unfortunately, the need for weekend service arrived years ahead of the trains.
VRE’s sponsoring jurisdictions aren’t spending all of their gas-tax revenue on VRE. It’s time they spent more and provided, at a minimum, one Saturday round trip on the Fredericksburg line and one on the Manassas line. Again, with traffic and air quality so bad, anyone who wants to take the train should find it an attractive choice. This would be one step in the right direction.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
When I tried to validate my Virginia Railway Express five-day pass, the machine spat it out so fast that the ticket went past my hand and landed on the floor, unvalidated. Once again I tried, and again the machine took my softball pitch and smacked it out of the park. Clearly I was out of my league with this ticket-batting machine that must have been on steroids, so I moved to another one and tried my luck there. This time I was successful, so I decided to wind up the game while my earned ride average was not too bad.
Later, at work, I went to the VRE website. There’s a link for reporting problems with ticket machines. I will have to add it to my favorite places on the Internet.
Another trick one of the machines pulled on me was to say it had subtracted a ride from a ten-ride pass and then print nothing on the ticket. Besides telling me there were two rides remaining, it should have printed an 8 (for the eighth ride out of ten) and the date and time. As I stepped away from the ticket machine, a man on the platform asked whether the machine had printed anything on my ticket. No, I answered, and I learned that the machine had just done the same thing with him. I walked down the platform and found the woman I’d seen step to the machine after me. I suggested that she check her ticket to see whether the machine had printed anything on it. Yes, she said, she had already checked it; she always checks her tickets. Smart lady.
Before boarding the train, I told my story to the conductor, who let me board without trying again and possibly having another ride subtracted from my ticket.
The next time I rode VRE, a different ticket machine validated my ticket all right and said there were still two rides remaining. Being an honest passenger, I didn’t use the ticket again after I’d gotten ten rides out of it.
Now I’d mentally crossed two ticket machines off my list because they were uncooperative: the one all the way on the right at Fredericksburg and the one all the way on the left at Crystal City. But the rebellion of the machines was spreading at Fredericksburg. The next trickster validated my ten-ride ticket but left a blank line between rides two and three. I didn’t visit my favorite place to report this, thinking that the next machine I used would just pick up where the other one left off. Wrong. That evening another machine validated my ticket for ride four but printed on top of ride three. Do you see what the ticket machine did, Mister Conductor? This ticket has been validated twice today, but in the same place. You believe me, don’t you, Mister Conductor?
I’m guessing that the conductors have seen almost everything. Not that you should try to get away with any tricks, such as not signing your monthly ticket. I discovered this requirement by accident.
I rode a very late VRE train (an hour late), but the crew did not give out free ride certificates, as is the custom when a train is a half hour or more late. In such cases, you can print out a form from the VRE website and use it to request a free ride certificate. (I was doing this often enough that I filled one in with my name, address, phone numbers, and so on, and made photocopies. Now all I have to do is fill in the train numbers and date of the delay.)
The form says that monthly ticket holders (I usually buy a monthly) must provide a copy of the front and back of the monthly ticket, which must be signed. “Must be signed”? Sure enough, in letters as high as this comma, it said, “Monthly tickets must be signed by the passenger.” And there’s a space an inch and three-quarters long and almost a quarter-inch high in which you are supposed to sign your name and write your phone number, with the area code.
That’s a tight fit, but maybe I could change my name to I Luv VRE.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
You can board a commuter train almost any time of day, and there are hourly intercity expresses in both directions. Freight trains run mostly at night, and if they run during the day, they yield to passenger trains. This is not a rail passenger’s fantasy; it’s the current reality in much of the Northeast. It could be the future for much of the country.
In some areas, particularly around Chicago, freight and passenger train operations mesh reasonably well; there, the commuter authority, Metra, operates intensive passenger service (mostly hourly during the day, and minutes apart during rush hour) on tracks mostly owned by freight railroads. Metra’s new, partly single-track North Central Line extension, which opened in Illinois this year, has less service because of competition from freight trains; riders complained because the initial schedule has only
“Control, not politics is this key to running a railroad on time,” says Pete Sklannik, former head of VRE and now running the Trinity Railway Express commuter rail operation between Dallas and Fort Worth, Tx. Passenger train operators across the nation agree. While passengers and freight get along pretty well in Illinois, elsewhere commuter authorities prefer to own the tracks on which they run. Generally they have purchased lines from freight railroads. The Trinity Railway Express line was essentially surplus: there’s a parallel main line owned by Union Pacific.
But Virginia and many other states don’t have surplus parallel mainlines that could be devoted to passenger trains. To accommodate the transportation needs of the present and the future, we should look at new electric railroads—updated versions of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Double-track mainlines would provide for intercity trains traveling up to
The new railroads would be environmentally friendly: fairly quiet, with almost no emissions, and a double-track right of way perhaps 50 feet wide.
We would save on construction by following the French practice of using existing lines in dense urban areas, where trains would be going slower anyway as they approach and depart stations. In Europe or Japan, a new high-speed electric railroad typically costs about
The Richmond-Washington line is one of the high-speed corridors designated for development by the Federal Railroad Administration. Connecting with Amtrak’s Northeast corridor in Washington, it would extend to Atlanta,
We spent $114 billion to build a 43,000-mile Interstate Highway System. The Federal Railroad Administration designated less than 10,000 miles of railroad routes for possible high-speed corridors but proposed no new lines, only upgrades to existing ones. Indeed, significant mileage is already owned by passenger-train operators: the
But here in Virginia, we could greatly benefit from passenger rails that are free of freight interference, and the Federal Railroad Administration identified the Southeast routes as those with the most potential and most likely to pay their operating costs from ticket sales. Richmond to Washington would be a good place to begin the nation’s new interstate system: one with little pollution, independent of foreign oil, that frees people from the financial, social, and environmental costs of overdependence on highways.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
For the third year in a row, Virginia Railway Express plans to raise fares this summer. The increase this time will be 6%, which is more than the typical passenger’s annual raise. For three years, VRE’s fare have been going up faster than its riders’ income.
For those with good incomes, it is not a hardship to pay an extra ten dollars or so a month. For people who are struggling to make ends meet, it hurts. When all I had was a temporary job in Ballston (Arlington), I would often get off the Metro one stop early to save
This is one reason why VRE’s annual fare increases are bad public policy. The working poor, students, and people without transportation choices are not what VRE calls its “core business,” but they depend on public transportation just the same. The fare increases are aimed at average riders, who presumably can afford it. Below-average riders don’t seem to be part of the equation, unless VRE’s math assumes that more-affluent riders will take their places if the poor ones can’t afford to ride.
The average riders may be able to afford ten dollars more per month, but that’s only part of the story. A lot of them also can afford to drive, and with ridership on the Fredericksburg line dropping, VRE isn’t fulfilling the mission imposed on it by its sponsoring jurisdictions: traffic mitigation. The average passengers may not be upset about paying more for a train ticket, but they are tired of paying more for poor service, and in the past year a lot of them have given up on riding the train and started driving instead.
Those who continue to ride VRE are not happy about the unreliable service. VRE’s on-time performance has improved since the low point of the
Besides highway traffic, which is hard to mitigate without an attractive alternative, local governments face the problem of air quality, which is poor and is tied to traffic. Fewer train riders means more cars on the road and more pollution. Higher fares aren’t going to help with this.
VRE is stuck in the middle, though: it is required to cover half its operating expenses from fares, so when those expenses—notably diesel fuel, railroad operations, and insurance—go up, riders legally must pick up half the bill. And the additional money won’t pay for more or better operations; like Alice in Through the Looking Glass, VRE has to run just to stay in one place.
All the short-term issues with fare increases fail to address the bigger problem of transportation funding, however. Paying locally for regional transportation means that resources such as VRE are not providing all the public benefits they could. One example: for almost 14 years, VRE trains have been running empty to Spotsylvania.
Under the current funding structure, it would benefit the county and the region if Spotsylvania were part of a regional transportation commission, supporting VRE but also raising money for other transportation projects. Yet the funding structure is part of the overall problem. For example, VRE has an option to purchase 50 new bilevel coaches, but can’t exercise the option, which expires next month, unless all eight of its member jurisdictions consent.
To expand, VRE needs more trains and more operating money. Spotsylvania and Fauquier counties are interested in becoming VRE member jurisdictions. Charlottesville is interested in VRE service, and more passengers are coming from places farther out, such as Orange and Caroline counties and even Richmond. But political boundaries are limiting the service that can and ought to be provided.
VRE gets some operating money from the state and hopes to get more, but unless we change the way we fund transportation in Virginia, we will be applying piecemeal remedies to a big problem.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
CSX can handle both freight and passenger trains and do it well, says Jay Westbrook, CSX Assistant Vice President for Public-Private Partnerships. However, to do that, CSX—the railroad over which Virginia Railway Express Fredericksburg trains run—needs a third track between Washington and Richmond, he said. At its operations board meeting last month, VRE agreed to pay for engineering work for a third track between Powell’s Creek in Prince William County and Arkendale Road in Stafford County—about
A third track already exists between Crystal City in Arlington and a junction in Alexandria known as AF interlocking—about
In the 1990s, the Commonwealth recognized that a third track to increase railroad capacity was needed if Richmond-Washington rail passenger service is ever to be frequent, fast, and reliable. In 2000 the state funded several projects to increase capacity: the third track from AF to Ravensworth over Franconia Hill, rebuilding of the
Triple track from Powell’s Creek to Arkendale is ideal for the next step, said Westbrook, because that segment has only one major water crossing: Quantico Creek, where the new bridge is already under construction, expected to open in 2007. Getting started on the third track soon would be more efficient than a double-track crossing of the creek (leaving part of the new bridge unused, which is the current plan) and later reconfiguring it to three tracks.
Combined with the other projects, it would make about
Laying a third track over other the rest of the line would be more difficult because of water crossings—the Rappahannock River, Potomac Creek, Aquia Creek, Powell’s Creek, Neabsco Creek, the Occoquan River, and the Potomac River. But Westbrook said that triple track between the bridges, with the line narrowing to double track over the existing bridges, would still yield a big capacity improvement, and the short double-track stretches would not create the kind of bottleneck presented by the current single-track crossing of Quantico Creek.
It has been the railroad’s position for decades that commuter trains need their own tracks. The Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac “says it will listen to proposals for commuter service,” wrote newsman Don Philips in a 1977 article in Trains, but a railroad official said that commuter trains “ought to be on their own facilities.” Back in 1977, there were only
The current operating pattern, with so many more Amtrak and VRE trains, has pushed more freight trains into nighttime slots, with no room for things to go wrong, said Westbrook. And sometimes things do go wrong. To accommodate the currently scheduled passenger trains and more in the future, the state is willing to buy more track, with strings attached, guaranteeing more slots for passenger trains.
For years, CSX was afraid to touch public money, said Westbrook, which is why the Arkendale, Quantico and Franconia Hill projects languished for years, the state’s appropriation unspent. Now CSX has a construction contract with the state, he said, and CSX is ready to keep moving ahead. While he works to get funding for a third track all the way to Richmond, he is confident that, with the current projects, passengers will see significant improvements within a few years.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in shorter form in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
Virginia Railway Express
It began, as these adventures often do, normally: waiting at the station at
Then we learned that the Fredericksburg train was broken down at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C., and that it would be at least
“Please shut up,” I said. But as you probably know, Twilight Zone voices do not stop on request. They stop only when you decide you really want to hear from them after all.
Surprisingly, the voices next admitted that, like the waiting passengers, they had no idea when train the Fredericksburg train would arrive, though a repair crew was en route, and later on site. And the train to Manassas would use the other track to get past the broken-down Fredericksburg train and would be the next train to arrive in Crystal City. I decided to take the Manassas train down to Alexandria and wait for the last Amtrak train to Fredericksburg.
But when the Manassas train arrived, to my surprise, crowds of people got off. I recognized one woman as a Fredericksburg passenger. “Why are you getting off here?” I asked her. She explained that the conductor told all the Fredericksburg line riders to get off at Crystal City. The Amtrak train would pick us all up and make all the VRE stops on its way to Fredericksburg.
That train departed for Manassas, and the voices abruptly ceased. I’d now been waiting at the station for more than an hour. Aside from information gotten from a fellow passenger, there was no more word about the Fredericksburg line. The I was still winking. But we did get an astonishing announcement: the next train to arrive in the station would be
Finally Amtrak came along, made an unscheduled stop at Crystal City to pick us all up, and stopped at all the VRE stations on the way to Fredericksburg. As far as I could tell, Fredericksburg
Yet the next morning, everything seemed normal, and when I heard “Our next stop is Crystal City,” I believed it. But wait! There’s a signpost up ahead. Your next stop: the Twilight Zone.
Return to the Twilight Zone
On November 17, I was back on the Crystal City platform, listening to announcements that switch problems north of L’Enfant Plaze in Washington were delaying trains up to
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
More than two hours late, the Amtrak Federal pulled into Fredericksburg on a Saturday evening earlier this month. At the time it was due (just before
The train’s crew had been battling foul weather all the way up the peninsula from Newport News. We encountered violent thunderstorms one after another, and the rain and lightning disrupted the signals and crossing gates on the railroad, CSX. In one place, a fallen tree had to be removed from the track. In stretches where the signals were out, the train had to proceed at
Last month, I wrote about Virginia Railway Express delays caused by problems on host railroad CSX Transportation—heat restrictions, slow orders where the track needs maintenance and freight trains tying up the line when their crews had to halt because they had reached the legal limit of
Wray Abbott, an Amtrak employee in the on-board service division, working on Auto Train, wrote to respond: “I can relate first hand on dealing with the frustration getting to your destination late. Your article touched on a lot problems with the railroad. However, you missed one important point: Safety. Anytime a train encounters a problem, the first thing it must do is slow down, find out what the problem is, and respond. When passengers ask me why the train is late, my response is ‘All the safety precautions that were put in place worked perfectly.’ Your article should have mentioned, yes, the trains do run late some of the time. But the train did arrive safely. Amtrak’s goal is to always run a safe train,” even more than an on-time train.
It is true that Amtrak has a good safety record, considering that it carries
It’s also true that heat restrictions, slow orders, and hours-of-service laws are safety measures. However, they often are measures to cope with situations that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. “CSX requires heat-restricted slow running because” it has not maintained its track to higher standards, according to Michael Testerman, president of the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons. “No other passenger railroad in Virginia regularly imposes heat restrictions.” Now, there are only two other passenger railroads in Virginia that I know of: the Washington Metro and Norfolk Southern (host to VRE’s Manassas line and to two Amtrak trains in Virginia and many more elsewhere). Both of those railroads do seem to have better track and fewer delays.
Even CSX doesn’t do badly when the weather isn’t against it. As the Federal was approaching Main Street Station in Richmond on that Saturday evening, we passed an Amtrak regional train heading to Newport News. It was on time, and it had traveled about
But CSX seems particularly vulnerable to typical Virginia weather: summer heat and thunderstorms, occasional heavy snow or ice storms in the winter. With its north-south mainline running through Washington, Fredericksburg and Richmond and carrying dozens of trains daily, CSX maintenance and operations have a lot of room for improvement.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
Virginia Railway Express began service on the Fredericksburg line
Not long ago I overheard two commuters complaining that VRE had not improved at all—service was the same as the day the trains started rolling. This didn’t sound right, but my own memory was a little foggy as to events in the summer of 1992. Also, although I have a VRE first-day rider’s certificate from
VRE began service to Fredericksburg with four rush-hour trains each way. Trains left Fredericksburg every half hour from
Today there are six rush-hour trains each way, plus a midday train from Washington to Fredericksburg (it returns to Washington empty for another trip to Fredericksburg). The trip takes an hour and
In 1992, a one-way ticket to Washington cost $5.95, a ten-trip cost $50.50, and a monthly pass cost $175.00. Now a one-way ticket costs $8.35, a ten-trip costs $76.50 (51% more) and a monthly ticket will set you back $230.60.
VRE’s stations in Washington, Arlington and Alexandria have always been close to Metro rail stations, and a substantial number of VRE’s passengers have always made part of their trip via Metro. Back in 1992 you paid extra for any connecting service beyond VRE, but nowadays you can buy a monthly pass that gives you a discount on Metro, and your VRE ticket gives you a free ride on Metro, Omnilink and Fairfax Connector buses.
When VRE started running, it didn’t operate on any holidays. Since then, riders enjoyed a few years when VRE ran reduced service on minor federal holidays, but that fell victim to budget cuts, along with free transfers to Dash (Alexandria Transit) and Art (Arlington Transit) buses.
Today, with purchase of a $2 step-up ticket, you can use your VRE monthly, ten-trip or five-day pass to ride any of five Amtrak trains each way between Fredericksburg and Washington (on weekdays only, although Amtrak runs seven days a week). Back in 1992, there was no cross-honoring of tickets on Amtrak. The four rush-hour trains were all you could ride with your VRE ticket.
Amtrak service at Fredericksburg has been through some interesting changes in the past
And what will VRE look like in 12 more years at age 25? In 2017, when I hear commuters complaining that the service hasn’t gotten any better, I will tell them how back in 2005, there were only six VRE trains to Washington, all of them making every stop, and no service on weekends or holidays. Then the real shocker. “And you know what?” I will say. “Back then, a ten-trip ticket cost only seventy-seven dollars!”
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
Virginia Railway Express passengers are 64% male, more than half are middle-aged, and more than 80% have a household income over $100,000, according to the results of a 2004 survey.
To think of VRE riders as upper-middle-class white males is to overlook a lot of riders, however. More than a third are female, 6% have a household income under $50,000, and 19% identify themselves as minorities.
More than 5,000 passengers filled out the survey, showing higher participation than in presidential elections or maybe even American Idol. More than half gave VRE a grade of B for overall quality of service, and another fourth gave it a C. Their number-one concern—cited by almost 1,400 riders—was late trains.
Still, 79% had recommended VRE to someone else in the past year. My guess is that they would rate
Almost two-thirds of VRE riders (63%) are government employees or in the military. Nearly everybody is riding to work, with fewer than 3% traveling for another purpose.
I’m sure that the number of tourists is somewhat higher in the summer (the survey is always conducted in the spring), and overall they represent more individuals, since the tourists on board are probably different people than those who were riding a week earlier.
Of the Fredericksburg line riders, more than a third (over a thousand) board at Fredericksburg each weekday morning. Almost another third (more than 800) use the two Stafford stations (Leeland Road and Brooke). Fredericksburg handles more riders than any other station on the VRE system. In second place was the Broad Run station outside Manassas, with more than 750 riders; Leeland Road was third with about 550.
Passengers tend to get up early. The first train leaves Fredericksburg at
But a fourth of the riders said they take an earlier train than they would prefer because of full parking lots. Generally, fewer people get on each subsequent train, with about 70 boarding the final VRE train out of Fredericksburg at
More than 80% of VRE riders drive alone to a station. About 14% (more than 700 systemwide) carpool or are dropped off. More than 150 systemwide (3%) walk to the station. I expect that the percentage is higher in Fredericksburg, and I expect the systemwide percentage to grow as more homes go up close to the stations at Leeland Road, Rippon, Woodbridge and Lorton.
Although 94% of VRE riders arrive at the station by car, nearly two-thirds (63%) walk to their destination after getting off VRE in the morning. Half the riders reach their destination within
About two-thirds get off the train at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, DC, or at Crystal City in Arlington. Both stops have many employers within a few minutes’ walk, and a lot of passengers change to Metrorail at Crystal City or travel to the Pentagon or Rosslyn (both in Arlington). Even with a fourth of the riders transferring to Metro, more than 90% are at their destination within
More than a fourth of the riders have been using VRE for less than two years; almost 400 had been riding since VRE service began in 1992. Before switching to VRE, 37% drove alone; 20% have always used VRE.
That isn’t just loyal riders, however. VRE passengers who received Metrocheks or another transit subsidy (and that’s almost three-fourths of us) typically have a choice between subsidized public transportation or subsidized parking. Where I work, for example, you can get either a parking pass or Metrocheks. You can’t park—you can’t even pay to park— in the garage if you choose to ride the train.
Yet a lot of passengers have made the choice to ride VRE all the time, and that’s exactly what the local governments wanted: They fund VRE to mitigate traffic.
As long as people give VRE a grade of B and give
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
Imagine getting off the Virginia Railway Express train and walking home from the station, stopping on the way to pick up dinner. Kids are bicycling home from the playground. Neighbors are jogging past, and as the sun gets low, a few history buffs are taking a last look at a Civil War historic site. And you’re not in Fredericksburg. You’re in Stafford at the next expansion of the Leeland Station development.
It will be a village with shops, restaurants, professional offices, apartments and town houses, besides typical suburban homes with lawns, if the property owner’s vision is fulfilled. Ted Smart, manager of Maryland Development Company, wants to “take advantage of the transportation” that’s there—VRE—and “put growth where it’s supposed to go.”
The company already has the right to build another
The proposal has been endorsed by the Smart Growth Alliance, which does not bestow its approval without knowing the facts. Its project recognition jury examined Maryland Development Company’s responses to a
What about the rest of the company’s property? If all the homes that Maryland Development is authorized to build are concentrated in a village, building still more homes—an extension of the village—on the remaining land will require zoning changes. But a revised Stafford development plan and any zoning decisions based on it appear to be years away. Smart, however, is confident that if he can go ahead with the first village, the county and its people will like what they see and grant permission for the rest of the property to be developed in a similar fashion. “We’re willing to take that risk,” he said.
Not only would the development buck the trend of sprawl in the Fredericksburg area, but Smart calculates that mixed-use development would give the county a net tax gain—after the cost of providing services to the new community—of
VRE was designed mostly on a park-and-ride model. With few exceptions the stations have little access except by car. Accommodating growing ridership means adding parking spaces. Fredericksburg, Quantico and Manassas are notable in that a sizable percentage of local residents can walk to the station. Transit-oriented development at the other stations would move VRE closer to the pattern of many other commuter railroads: in many towns a sizable percentage of the passengers walk to the station. This would help VRE grow at lower cost, providing more transportation without an equal increase in parking.
To take the next step, Maryland Development Company needs a text amendment to Stafford’s building code to allow the homes to be concentrated in a smaller area, with private parking and commercial space. Smart emphasized that what his company is asking of the county is “stricter criteria.” He hopes to get the planning commission to review the amendment in time for the supervisors to approve it in June.
Most current development that requires travel by road to go almost anywhere, creating an endless multiplication of traffic and lessened mobility for anyone who doesn’t drive. The proposed village at Leeland Station would take growth in a different direction. It looks like a smart idea to me.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
The wreck that killed
Having the engine push a passenger train “is the most dangerous thing in the world,” an employee of the Staten Island, N.Y., Railroad told me decades ago. He said that in a collision, the coaches would stop more easily than the heavy locomotive, which would tend to keep moving and crush the cars against whatever they had hit.
The Staten Island Railroad was then and is now basically an extension of the
Since then, push-pull operations have become standard on commuter railroads throughout North America, and Virginia Railway Express trains normally operate with the locomotive at the south end of the train. Since grade-crossing accidents are rarely fatal for anyone on the train, the economics of running push-pull trains has dwarfed any safety concerns, and the past few decades have shown that there are lots more dangerous things in the world—driving, for instance.
The Glendale wreck revived the question, however, although “Tim Smith, California state chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said the union has been complaining about the practice for years,” according to the
Having a locomotive be in the lead “will reduce, if not eliminate, the resultant damages or injuries from a collision at a grade crossing,” said Curt Secrest of Spotsylvania, who has about 25 years of rail industry knowledge and experience. He pointed out some factors that made the Glendale wreck far worse than most grade-crossing accidents: “Most of the collisions at a grade crossing occur when a motor vehicle crosses in the path of the train, which results in a T-bone–type collision.” In most of these events, he said, the train is delayed, but the motor vehicle is shoved off or down the tracks following impact. When Juan Manuel Alvarez drove his vehicle onto the tracks in the path of an oncoming Metrolink commuter train, then got out, “he drove his vehicle parallel to the tracks instead of perpendicular, which changed the dynamics of the impact.… Add in the commuter train on the adjacent track and the work train in the siding and you have the worst possible scenario.”
It’s different, though, “when a dump truck or other large vehicle” is struck or “when a semi-trailer (usually low-boys) hauling heavy equipment” gets stuck on the crossing—“there are usually grave consequences when a train strikes these.”
Meanwhile, the
Whatever the findings of the investigation, it’s unlikely that commuter railroads will abandon push-pull operation, because there are hundreds of scheduled push-pull trains running on a given weekday, with almost half being pushed by the engine. Even higher crashworthiness standards are a possibility. The front rows of passenger seats in cab cars might be eliminated. Another possibility is detection equipment that would apply a train’s emergency brake if a there’s a motor vehicle between lowered crossing gates. Continued elimination of grade crossings is a certainty.
The Glendale wreck was, if not a freak accident, at least a rare type of one, but it could happen again, and VRE passengers could choose not to sit right up front if there are other seats available.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
Is Virginia Railway Express vulnerable to the kind of suicide wreck that killed
The VRE Fredericksburg line could experience a similar tragedy, and VRE officials are aware of it. In fact, three years ago, in conjunction with local fire departments, rescue squads, and hospitals, VRE held an exercise called “Cold Dawn” on the Quantico Marine Corps base. The hypothetical disaster was caused by a terrorist who parked a tank truck on the track as a train approached, then abandoned the truck. VRE continues to plan and drill for emergencies.
Besides planning and preparation, other factors mitigate the danger that the Glendale catastrophe would be repeated on the Fredericksburg line. For one thing, unlike many commuter lines that thread through the streets of cities and suburbs, VRE has few grade crossings. The
However, simply leaving a vehicle on the tracks is unlikely to kill anyone besides the vehicle’s occupants. The efforts of groups such as Operation Lifesaver (which promotes grade-crossing safety) have reduced the number of accidents, but there are still, according to the
One thing that made the Glendale wreck so calamitous was the collision with the second train. If the first train had merely smashed into Alvarez’s vehicle, the train might have suffered little damage beyond scratched paint. However, the train did leave the tracks, always a possibility when hitting a motor vehicle. Even so, a derailed train sometimes remains upright, often with injuries but no fatalities. In short, train vs. motor vehicle is an unequal match, unless, as in the Cold Dawn scenario, the motor vehicle is loaded with hazardous materials.
A collision between two trains has large potential for damage, injury, and death, but it would be difficult to plan. If someone intended to kill a large number of people by causing two trains to collide, derailing one by means of a motor vehicle parked on the tracks would not be guaranteed to work. The train going the other way might have arrived a minute later or earlier, and therefore could have been a mile away when the first one derailed—still in danger, but with time to slow down or stop short of the derailment.
With 3,000 grade-crossing accidents a year nationally and six crossings on the Fredericksburg line, a collision between a VRE train and a motor vehicle may be only a matter of time. But it’s not likely to be a disaster. Whether people get killed is a matter of educating the public, of planning and preparing for emergencies, and of money. The federal government has provided some funding for grade-crossing elimination on some busy railroad lines, and in the future the remaining crossings on the Fredericksburg line may be replaced by overpasses, particularly if the line is ever upgraded from 70 to
The line may still be the scene of occasional accidents, but not necessarily disasters, nor should it be a tempting target for anyone wanting to cause a catastrophe.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
Nearly five years after the money became available, CSX is finally moving ahead with track improvements to be funded—and owned—by the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The $66 million capacity expansion is designed to decrease congestion and shorten trip times between Washington and Richmond, but most of the work is between Fredericksburg and Washington and will directly benefit Virginia Railway Express operations.
The first project, with construction at last under way, is a new bridge at Quantico Creek. The existing single-track bridge is a bottleneck. The new bridge will add a second track and provide room for a third. It’s part of a plan to have three tracks all the way from Washington to Richmond to accommodate moderately high-speed passenger service:
Another project, which VRE hopes to see completed this year, is to install crossovers near Arkendale Road in the Widewater area of Stafford County, so faster trains can pass slower ones. Anyone who has ridden VRE for a while has probably heard an announcement that there was a slow-moving CSX freight train ahead. Depending on what’s coming on the other track, sometimes a dispatcher can allow a faster train to pass. However, between Quantico and Dahlgren Junction in southern Stafford, a distance of
If you’ve boarded a train at Fredericksburg, you’ve probably wondered, “Where is
More good news: for the most part VRE does not expect the construction to disrupt operations, since it will involve adding a track alongside the others on existing right of way. Installing the crossovers at Arkendale and connecting the new track to the others will certainly mean some delayed trains, however.
Will riders see a difference? A 2000 study by CSX and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation showed that train movements—essentially, trains getting in one another’s way—were causing 48% of the train delays on the Fredericksburg line. The Quantico Creek bottleneck accounted for another 8%. That’s more than half the delays. Maybe the capacity improvements won’t cut delays in half, but they should at least give a major boost to VRE’s on-time performance. Also, more track capacity will mean more trains. Part of the commonwealth’s agreement with CSX is that VRE and Amtrak will be allowed to operate more trains over the line.
More trains, running on schedule more often: for those of us commuting to northern Virginia and Washington, that will be a big improvement.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
I had just settled down for a long winter’s nap in the Virginia Railway Express quiet car, when from behind me arose such a clatter that I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter.
There was a man wearing a red cap trimmed with white fur. “I got all the presents and I’m on my way!” he said loudly. Could it be—was this the jolly old elf himself?
“This is the real Polar Express!” he exclaimed.
Had I gotten on the wrong train? It would be bad enough to be headed for Manassas, but the North Pole? I would never get home in time for Christmas, unless—maybe I could ride in the sleigh with Santa!
“Excuse me, Santa,” I began, but he silenced me with a wave of his hand, and I realized he hadn’t been talking to me at all, or to anyone else on board. He raised his cell phone to his ear and said loudly, “Hi! I’m on the train!”
I stood there while he carried on a conversation with someone far away. When he finally said goodbye, I began again: “Excuse me, Santa, but this is the quiet car. Would you mind…”
“Oh!” he said. “I thought I was the only one here.”
“Well, you’re certainly acting like it, Santa, but there are lots of other people here who were hoping for a quiet ride home.”
“Don’t be such a Scrooge!” he scolded me. “Who do you think you are—the Grinch? It’s Christmas!”
“Well,” I said meekly, looking around to the other passengers for support, “could you give us a present, then? Just keep your voice down, please?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I walked back to my seat, slouched down, and pulled my coat up over my head. Nestled all snug in my seat, I closed my eyes, listened to the rumble of the train and, after a while, fell asleep.
When I awoke, I was alone in the car. I thought I’d heard the conductor announce Fredericksburg and tell us to grab all our stuff. Had it all been a dream?
I looked around at the empty car and wondered what my family would say when I arrived home. Who would believe me when I told them that Santa himself had been aboard the train that evening, and that I had ridden the real Polar Express? (I didn’t see the North Pole, though. I must have slept through that stop.) And I didn’t have a souvenir silver bell to prove that it had all been real.
As I put on my coat and gathered up my things, I looked out into the night as we entered Fredericksburg. I could see the Christmas lights illuminating the town, and falling snow beginning to turn the streets white.
Just then, as I was about to leave the train, I heard bells—sleigh bells! And music. The faint tune of Jingle Bells reached my ears. Was it a sign from Santa after all? The adults who don’t believe would say that it was just another cell phone.
By Steve Dunham
This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on
The fares charged by Virginia Railway Express are about average for commuter rail lines, I discovered after looking at the fare structure of
I looked for routes of
For a one-way ticket, VRE charges $8.10, or Interestingly, the Trinity system is captained by Pete Sklannik, lately of VRE, and he worked at the Long Island Rail Road before coming to Virginia.
In monthly tickets, VRE fares are also right about in the middle. A monthly ticket between Washington and Fredericksburg costs $227.90, or Where VRE is on the high side is with The highest fares are on the commuter railroads serving New York, Philadelphia, and The systems that are much more expensive than VRE also offer much more service, however—seven days a week and, in the However, the cheaper systems also tend to offer a lot more service than VRE, typically running seven days a week and offering substantial midday and evening service in addition to rush-hour trips. Also, while VRE is cutting the use of its tickets to ride Amtrak, the trend among smaller systems is in the other direction: Sound Transit in Seattle and the Coaster system in With VRE fares up this year and maybe next, it is some consolation to know that the ticket prices are about average nationwide. However, it’s also true that riders elsewhere tend to get more service for their dollars.
Commuter Rail Fares Compared
Railroad Trip Miles One-Way Per Mile Weekly Per Mile 10-trip Per Mile Monthly Per Mile NY MTA NY-Bridgeport 54 $14.75 $.270 $101.00 $.187 $147.50 $.273 $315.00 $.145 LA Metrolink LA–San Bernardino 53 $10.00 $.189 $7.50 $.141 $283.75 $.134 NJ Transit NY-Hamilton 54 $10.05 $.186 $85.50 $.158 $281.00 $.130 SEPTA Phila.–Newark, DE 39 $7.00 $.179 $95.50 $.117 $60.00 $.159 $163.00 $.104 MARC DC–Harper’s Ferry 55 $9.00 $.163 $67.50 $.123 $72.00 $.131 $225.00 $.102 Shore Line East New Haven–New London 51 $7.75 $.152 $70.00 $.137 $165.00 $.080 VRE DC-Fredericksburg 54 $8.10 $.150 $64.80 $.120 $72.90 $.135 $227.90 $.095 NICTD Chicago–Michigan City 56 $7.55 $.135 $71.70 $.128 $215.00 $.096 Caltrain San Francisco–San Jose 43 $5.50 $.128 $46.75 $.109 $145.75 $.085 Coaster San Diego–Oceanside 42 $5.25 $.125 $48.00 $.114 $144.00 $.086 MBTA Boston-Fitchburg 50 $6.00 $.120 *$72.00 $.120 $198.00 $.099 Metra Chicago-Kenosha 52 $6.10 $.117 $51.85 $.100 $164.70 $.079 Sounder</