Lynchburg VA NE Regional (ext. to Roanoke and Bristol)

Arlington wrote:

Station Aficionado wrote:

afiggatt wrote:$45 million total over 5 years for 6 "PRIIA" trains.

This number caught my eye. It appears to be an operating subsidy. Just which trains does it cover?

isaksenj wrote:Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA)
http://www.fra.dot.gov/Elib/Document/1465

I wonder about the number "6" also, especially if NFK is supposed to get 3 trains and ROA is supposed to get 2, that's 5 right there. PRIIA has trumped the Amtrak Virginia deal and so PRIIA = any non-LD train operating in Virginia, which I believe is the same as saying *all* NEC "extensions" operating in Virginia

I'm guessing, but I think the 6 correspond to 1 LYH, 2 NPN, 1 NFK (that's 4 that I know are PRIIAA) and then I'm guessing 2 other trains that terminate at RVR today that are sort of earmarked to turn into NFK frequencies. This also means that any ROA train or any additional NFK service (beyond 3 daily) would have to either find its own $ or hope that the current good revenue trends will continue such that only 6 trains need support at any one time?

For the record, the more I think about it, the more I like your NYP-ROA-CLT proposal. If the routing is feasible, I think you have a real winner on your hands, particularly if swinging the train through ROA creates a LD train(assuming LD trains are still funded.)

ThirdRail7 wrote:For the record, the more I think about it, the more I like your NYP-ROA-CLT proposal. If the routing is feasible, I think you have a real winner on your hands, particularly if swinging the train through ROA creates a LD train(assuming LD trains are still funded.)

Glad to hear! I think it had to start at BOS if it was going to get to 750mi (BOS-CLT is 728mi by air) and as we looked at it here, I thought just making a BOS-LYH-CLT train (skipping ROA for now) would be a nice LD train to try as soon as 2014 when CLT's yard/crew capacity was expanded. The beauty being that the whole train would just be laid on top of proven existing markets, routes and facilities and does an awesome job of both penetrating the fortress-hub airline markets at WAS and CLT, and serving the US 29 corridor that has lousy interstate access.

On the other hand, picking up ROA is nice--serving 300k people (or 450k if you include Blackburg-Christiansburg). Picking up WNS (with 500k people out of the 1.5m Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem Triad) seems even nicer. Admittedly they're not entirely virgin territory since some in both places are now driving to get the train in LYH and Greensboro.

Now that Virginia is going to be doing ROA "for real" by 2018, I do wonder whether that's the most transport bang for Virginia's bucks, or whether, if they could leverage CLT's train-turning capacity, they'd be better off spending the $ on ROW upgrades. ROA to CLT was choice between a serpentine mountainous route to go via Winston-Salem (WNS) or cutting back through Altavista to rejoin the Crescent's route (and then go via Greensboro)

WFIR says that sombody at VDRPT says ROA is possible by 2016 if Gov's plan is approved this year
http://wfirnews.com/local-news/va-rail- ... s-approved

That fits better with my "how can 2 sidings in ROA possibly take longer than 3 years" take on things

Arlington wrote:WFIR says that sombody at VDRPT says ROA is possible by 2016 if Gov's plan is approved this year
http://wfirnews.com/local-news/va-rail- ... s-approved

That fits better with my "how can 2 sidings in ROA possibly take longer than 3 years" take on things

Gad, I hate 3-letter abbreviations. I spent much of this thread wondering why anyone would want to route a train New York to Roanoke to Charlottesville.

Rail supporters were getting nervous when a partisan fight in the State Senate threatened to kill any hope of a transportation compromise. They're feeling a bit more optimistic now, but the next two and a half weeks could have a major impact on the future of passenger rail in the region.

WDBJ7 Video http://www.wdbj7.com/news/wdbj7-transpo ... 2725.story

The Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board approved $600,000 to fund environmental and preliminary engineering work on the extension to Roanoke. There is a short slide deck posted here:

http://www.ctb.virginia.gov/resources/2 ... senger.pdf

This preliminary work is going to use existing funds so that they don't have to wait for the new revenues in the transportation bill passed earlier this year. There may have been more detail on the scope of the work or the projected timeline in the meeting discussion, but the audio has not been posted yet.

mkellerm wrote:The Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board approved $600,000 to fund environmental and preliminary engineering work on the extension to Roanoke. There is a short slide deck posted here:

http://www.ctb.virginia.gov/resources/2 ... senger.pdf

I have done a fair amount of work on Powerpoint in government positions and I can say there is one simple message that briefing is meant to convey, "This is going to happen as fast as possible." The implicit message is, "We're doing this, here's our scratchpad rendering of where we're going to go and how we think we can fund it as fast as possible."

The only bullet in there that truly mattered: "The Governor has made the extension of passenger rail service to Roanoke a priority."

The bullet acknowledging the letter from the Mayor of Roanoke was good but almost equally important was the implicit message in several places that "Norfolk Southern is cooperating with us on this project." They could just as easily have said, "We can't handle this unless we get $100M in improvements."

gokeefe wrote:I have done a fair amount of work on Powerpoint in government positions and I can say there is one simple message that briefing is meant to convey, "This is going to happen as fast as possible." The implicit message is, "We're doing this, here's our scratchpad rendering of where we're going to go and how we think we can fund it as fast as possible."

The only bullet in there that truly mattered: "The Governor has made the extension of passenger rail service to Roanoke a priority."

The bullet acknowledging the letter from the Mayor of Roanoke was good but almost equally important was the implicit message in several places that "Norfolk Southern is cooperating with us on this project." They could just as easily have said, "We can't handle this unless we get $100M in improvements."

Based on the numbers in the February viewgraph presentation of the draft state rail plan on this ]DRPT webpage (see page 26 for a long list of future project costs projections), the projected cost for extension to Roanoke was $128 million. So NS is or was presumably asking for over a $100 million in track upgrades, double tracking and passing siding improvements. I figure some of the $128 million is for building or restoring stations in Roanoke and Bedford.

The schedule dates in the February presentation were based on the future funding levels expectations before the transportation bill was passed. The Governor in his initial pitch for the transportation revenue increase had increased capital funding going to the Roanoke extension starting in FY14 and service to Norfolk starting in FY15. I expect that we will see both the Roanoke extension and capacity expansion & trip time reductions for 3 daily trains to Norfolk as the priority projects over the next 3 years. If there are enough funds available, then maybe a second train to Lynchburg to meet demand gets advanced as well. We will learn more when the proposed six year budget plan for FY14 and the state rail plan documents are posted. Virginia's fiscal year starts on July 1, so the proposed budget plan has to be made available before then. The next 3-4 years will see some significant Amtrak service improvements and expansions in VA!

VA DRPT boss, Thelma Drake, continues to talk up Lynchburg as a model for the rest of the state. However I think this article overstates "the project" to extend service beyond Roanoke to Radford and onward to Bristol.
http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/a ... f6878.html

My read (between the lines) is that she's supportive, but that she was simply speaking to a group of Chamber-of-Commerce types--so her audience were the ones with "the project" which appears to be the same old Trans Dominion Express (and not any kind of VA DRPT project).

This is a good sign:

Passenger rail effort moving forward

Experts have begun work necessary to bring Amtrak service to Roanoke

http://www.roanoke.com/news/1901113-12/ ... rward.html

Please allow a brief "fair use" quote:

Development of a planned passenger train service for Roanoke has shifted to a higher gear.

Next up: choosing a downtown location for the platform from which riders will board.

The train won’t reach Roanoke for an estimated three to four years. But last month the state agreed to spend $600,000 for technical services related to the siting and design of three components of the infrastructure: a platform, a spare track for the train, and track improvements.

The money was approved April 17 by the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

In addition, a railroad consultant is combing the 52 miles of Norfolk Southern Corp. freight lines between Roanoke and Lynchburg, outlining what physical changes must precede the introduction of passenger trains. That work — which is budgeted to cost the state $192,500 and the railroad $82,500, for a total of $275,000 — will continue into early next year.

The fact that engineers and consultants are beginning the practical work of giving Roanoke its long-sought passenger train service has lent the project new realism. Unless there’s an unexpected glitch in funding the plan, “I don’t know anything that would hold it up now,” said Wayne Strickland, who directs the Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission.

Is there any word yet on whether ROA will be built to overnight just 1 train, or would they go ahead and make it 2? My first guess is that ROA can't "afford" 2, mostly because of the economics of finding trainsets. Recall that a lot of what makes Amtrak Virginia "work" is the low cost of extending NEC trains on the shoulders of their day (when the train would be idle or poorly used), plus the revenue benefit of having Virginians fill empty "midday" seats on the NEC>

The NEC didn't need any more trains in the 5am to 8am time window or 6pm to Midnight, but Virginia has been a great place to put these "free" trainsets to work when they'd otherwise be (mostly) idle...starting northbound in the wee hours of the morning and returning back after NEC primetime.

So Virginia is also a great place to have trains layover overnight, and has shown that trains can start earning money as early as 5am (e.g. NFK). From this, it seems like Amtrak Virginia would want to berth a train everyplace that could support a 5am Start (LYH, RIC, NFK and NPN...with ROA in the future, and probably someplace to serve CVS with a 6am start, either CVS itself or Clifton Forge (or work with West Virginia to start at White Sulphur Springs) .

Based on the success of 5am trains from NFK to WAS, it seems pretty clear to me that when Roanoke comes online its first train will simply be an extension of today's 176 (which will start in ROA at about 6:20am instead of LYH, where it starts at a leisurely 7:38 .

That will free up the Layover at LYH for a new Rapahannock "supercommuter" train to DC that could depart an hour before the Crescent and work similarly to the NFK train, in that it gets riders to DC in time for a true full day. A 5am LYH start to train 184 (which, today is a 9:00 am northbound start from WAS) would look like:

NB -ROA- - -LYH- - -CVS- AR -WAS
DP ------- - 05:00 - 06:12 AR 08:40 NER #184...to PHL by 11:12a and NYP by 12:40p, where it would terminate)
DP ------- - 05:56 - 07:09 AR 09:53 Crescent #20
DP 06:20 - 07:38 - 08:52 AR 11:20 NER #176 started farther South
DP ------- - ------ - 14:53 AR 17:30 Cardinal (SuWeFr only)
DP 15:30 - 16:50 - 18:00 AR 20:30 * Hypothetical far-future ROA Daytime Turn

Meanwhile, we don't know where the Southbound trains would "come from" but an extension of train 185 has been discussed:
SB -NYP- - -WAS- - -CVS- - -LYH- - -ROA
DP -------- 09:30- - 12:00 - 13:10 - 14:30 *Hypothetical far-future ROA Daytime Turn
DP 06:45 - 11:05 - 13:55 ------------------ Cardinal #51 (SuWeFr only)
DP 08:10 - 11:30 - 14:00 - 15:10 --------- NER #185 Extended (paired with 184 for rotation)
DP 12:55 - 16:50 - 19:23 - 20:36 - 22:00 NER #171 Extended (paired with 176 for rotation)
DP 14:15 - 18:30 - 20:52 - 22:00 --------- Crescent #19

About that Daytime ROA turn. The advantage is that it would operate at the opposite ends of the day from existing trains. But in doing so, loses the trainset utilization benefits and has one, big, economic problem: it would have to steal a trainset from elsewhere in the Amtrak system. It probably can't "outbid" any existing midday use on the NEC (there's just too much money between the big cities). So a ROA daytime train would have to "outbid" some other current non-NEC use of NEC-capable equipment. PRIIA is going to have to trim a trainset from someplace else before that happens.

Is there any word yet on whether ROA will be built to overnight just 1 train, or would they go ahead and make it 2? My first guess is that ROA can't "afford" 2, mostly because of the economics of finding trainsets.

I think it is clear from the VA DRPT presentations and the recently posted draft FY14 Six Year Improvement Plan (SYIP) that they will be extending 1 daily train to Roanoke. A second train to Roanoke will left to a future project phase. The draft FY14 SYIP may be only a placeholder draft as they refine the costs and how much funding DRPT will get from the in the outlying years with the new tax revenue. But, that said, the draft SYIP appears to first spend funds on service to Roanoke through FY17 ($95.8 million), then expend funds from FY16 to FY18 on 2 additional trains to Norfolk ($80 million). Those two likely get taken care of first by 2018, then they can begin to work on additional service to Lynchburg and Roanoke.

There are upgrade projects for NS categorized under the I-81 Crescent Corridor freight category such as $31.6 million for Nokesville to Calverton double tracks in FY15 and FY16 that will improve capacity (and trip times) between Manassas and Lynchburg for passenger service. So, by 2018, they may have some of the capacity improvements done for a second daily train, at least to Lynchburg, even if there is not a specific project for it under the passenger expansion project list.

The shortline preservation fund projects for track maintenance, signal system upgrade, and the $7 million "Siding Project" for the North Mountain and Orange subdivisions of the Buckingham Branch RR that the Cardinal runs on are incrementally funded through FY2015. If those funds are expended by end of CY 2015 with an improved BBRR, a daily Cardinal would provide a second daily train to CVS that could take some of the load off of the once a day Lynchburger while VA DRPT works on 3 daily trains to NFK. Amtrak is not talking about a daily Cardinal at the present because they want to wait to see if Indiana will fund the Hoosier State, perhaps even a daily Hoosier State. That is my theory, anyway.

I think we have seen VA be much more aggressive so far than what is outlined above. I believe that if present policy is continued we could be seeing significant discussion from public officials about this option within the next year or two. The local governments are being allowed and enabled to drive this effort. If Lynchburg chooses to take the initiative and push I think they will be accommodated.

[EDIT:clarity]

5am LYH start to train 184 (which, today is a 9:00 am northbound start from WAS) would look like:
NB -ROA- - -LYH- - -CVS- AR -WAS
DP ------- - 05:00 - 06:12 AR 08:40 NER #184...to PHL by 11:12a and NYP by 12:40p, where it would terminate)

Only problem with the timing is that you're chasing 5 minutes behind VRE 330. Is this train going to make Burke Centre and L'Enfant like 176? In addition, I'm out there (VRE 323, DH to Broad Run), as well as the NS locals out of Manassas....P98 and P63. Greenville MIGHT be able to squeeze it past 330 if there is no Burke Centre stop, but the transition from NS to CSX at Alexandria might get messy, and L'Enfant would probably be out of the question.

5am LYH start to train 184 (which, today is a 9:00 am northbound start from WAS) would look like:
NB -ROA- - -LYH- - -CVS- AR -WAS
DP ------- - 05:00 - 06:12 AR 08:40 NER #184...to PHL by 11:12a and NYP by 12:40p, where it would terminate)

Only problem with the timing is that you're chasing 5 minutes behind VRE 330. Is this train going to make Burke Centre and L'Enfant like 176? In addition, I'm out there (VRE 323, DH to Broad Run), as well as the NS locals out of Manassas....P98 and P63. Greenville MIGHT be able to squeeze it past 330 if there is no Burke Centre stop, but the transition from NS to CSX at Alexandria might get messy, and L'Enfant would probably be out of the question.

Well, yes, VRE and Amtrak would have to cooperate, and they have a couple of years to figure out how. Its just that that Lynchburg layover and crew base are a nice asset that will be sitting idle in a proven market.

The revised step-up ticket program (that puts VRE passholders on Amtrak trains for $3...http://www.vre.org/service/step-up_ticket.htm) is a good start, meaning that an extended Amtrak 184 through VRE territory can be a win for Manassas and Burke commuters. Also, my schedule is approximate, and probably has +/- 10 minutes at lots of points on its trip (and a decent length schedule-protection hold at WAS). Ideally, since Amtrak is serving as a VRE "Express" you'd hope they could time the two so that VRE 330 is follows behind by 5 minutes (at MSS) and have the VRE "local" fall to being 10 minutes behind by the time they get to ALX.