Meredith Richards knows how it feels when a passenger train grinds to a halt as a freight train blocks its path. But thanks to a recently announced legal settlement, the former Charlottesville city councilor and other riders on Amtrak’s Crescent line, which links Central Virginia to New York and New Orleans, may soon find fewer delays.
”It’s an extraordinary, historic moment,” Richards, now chair of the Rail Passengers Association, told The Daily Progress. “It’s a very important decision for our area and for our passengers.”
The deal announced Sept. 9 requires Norfolk Southern Railway, which controls 1,140 of the Crescent’s 1,377 miles, to give Amtrak trains the highest priority and requires a supervisor’s approval for any nonemergency dispatching decision that does not give priority to Amtrak trains.
“Passengers should experience far fewer delays, more reliable service and on-time arrivals at their stations, and a smoother trip altogether,” said Richards.
Amtrak was chartered by Congress in 1970. Three years later, the Amtrak Improvement Act demanded that the host railroads give “preference” to Amtrak trains. A lack of enforcement long peeved passengers, but the 1973 law got its most significant boost with the recent lawsuit’s filing last summer.
“Norfolk Southern has repeatedly failed to give Amtrak passenger trains preference over freight trains,” the government contended in its complaint, filed July 30, 2024, in the federal court for the District of Columbia. “Norfolk Southern’s preference violations have a clear, adverse effect upon Amtrak’s performance, business, and customers.”
In 2021, three years before the suit, Amtrak padded the Crescent’s schedule to cope with freight and other obstacles by adding 90 minutes to the journey’s slated run time. Still, the trains did not run on time.
During the following year, according to the complaint, only 41% of northbound Crescent trains arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival, and just 22% of southbound Crescent trains met that standard.
While the lawsuit focused on the Crescent, Richards said that the deal means that delays will diminish not only on the Crescent but also on the other long-distance train serving Central Virginia, the thrice-weekly Cardinal, which connects New York to Chicago.
“It’s clearly going to mean that our passengers on the Crescent and hopefully on the Cardinal will have a guarantee that they’ll arrive within 15 minutes of the scheduled time of arrival wherever they’re going at least 80% of the time.”
Amtrak’s Sept. 9 announcement of the deal included data showing that on-time performance has already improved since the suit was filed.
Delays on the Crescent are down by about a third, or 34%, year over year, with freight train interference reduced by more than half, or 53%, according to Amtrak. The passenger rail company reports delays across all Norfolk Southern-hosted routes has decreased by more than a quarter, or 26%.
Richards was widely credited for launching an Amtrak service expansion into Central Virginia through persistent lobbying of communities along the U.S. 29 corridor. The Northeast Regional extension into Virginia began in 2009, and it gained a second daily round-trip in 2022. Currently terminating in Roanoke, the two daily round-trips of the Northeast Regional are slated to extend to Christiansburg in 2027.
In the late 1990s, before the Northeast Regional entered the market, Richards recalled that annual ridership at Charlottesville’s Union Station on West Main Street was about 30,000. Last year, according to Amtrak, it was 201,707.
One future service that would connect Charlottesville westward to the New River Valley and eastward to Richmond and Tidewater appears moving — but moving slowly. In 2019, outgoing Gov. Ralph Northam announced Virginia would buy the former C&O main line, a 164-mile, east-west route from Clifton Forge to Doswell. Northam’s succcessor, Glenn Youngkin, has also endorsed the Commonwealth Corridor.
A preliminary 2021 state study envisioned launching the service with a pair of daily round-trips between Christiansburg and Newport News. That study estimated the capital cost at $416.5 million and forwarded the proposal to the Federal Railroad Administration, which announced a $500,000 planning grant in 2023.
”Now they are going through the official federal process which opens them up to federal funding,” Danny Plaugher, executive director of Virginians for High Speed Rail, told The Daily Progress. “We’re very excited to see it continue to advance.”
Plaugher said that while other projects, such as a proposed link between Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, North Carolina, received planning priority, he said the Commonwealth Corridor study has only recently begun.
”Progress is happening,” said Plaugher. “It’s just a very slow time right now.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com