Hello everybody,
I feel like I should share my recent trips on Amtrak south of Richmond recently. I've ridden Amtrak plenty of times north of Washington D.C. but never south. The impetus for this trip was visiting a friend at Christopher Newport University in Newport News and riding Amtrak!
I would be taking a southbound Northeast Regional from Alexandria. I chose to take the train out of Alexandria because it's much quicker and a lot less troublesome than going into Union Station. I wanted to ride as much transit as possible during this trip, so my initial plan was to take the Silver Line from Loudon to Roslynn, and then transfer to the Blue Line to get to Alexandria; however, this plan was quickly dashed when I realized that Metro doesn't open on Sundays (the day I would be leaving) until 7 a.m. My train left at 7:18. Instead, I had a family member drive me down.
After a quick breakfast at Bob and Edith's Diner, (really good corn beef hash by the way) I went to the Alexandria station and boarded my train. It was a standard Northeast Regional consist of a very worn P42 and a string of Amfleets. My experience with Amfleets has not been the best; however, I am glad to say that everything worked on this run! No broken doors or bathrooms. No rattling overhead preventing me from sleeping...
Some miscellaneous observations:
- The Fredricksburg station has a German restaurant built into it. (Having taken 5 years of German in middle and high school I would have loved to stop to check it out.) My friend joked that was the best case of "TOD" he had ever seen!
- Richmond Staple Mill is the most Amtrak Amtrak station I've ever seen. It consists of two tracks off of the CSX main with a long, unsheltered platform and an access road for company trucks off to the side. The actual station building itself is a bland, brick building. I was almost expecting to see a few faded "pointless arrows," but they were nowhere to be seen.
- The stretch of line between Richmond Staple Mill and Richmond Main Street is slow. I really do hope they up the speeds on that segment. It would save some travel time. (Maybe this is included in recent state rail plans? I would like to know!)
- Richmond Main Street had a lot of passengers. Despite the fact that most of them were waiting for trains that weren't mine, I was pleasantly surprised.
- The Newport News station is similar to Richmond Staple Mill, although I did see the new station and it looked quite good! My friend told me that the current Newport News station also had an "Amshack" with rotting wood up until about a week ago. Kinda sad I missed it.
My friend met me at the station and we rode the Newport News bus system. As of writing this, I am still in Newport News and will be coming back on Tuesday. I'll be sure to share my return journey then.
Overall, I had a really neat experience on Amtrak south of Washington D.C. I am quite excited about all the improvements Virginia is planning for passenger rail in the next decade. More thoughts will come in due time.
-Shortline
I feel like I should share my recent trips on Amtrak south of Richmond recently. I've ridden Amtrak plenty of times north of Washington D.C. but never south. The impetus for this trip was visiting a friend at Christopher Newport University in Newport News and riding Amtrak!
I would be taking a southbound Northeast Regional from Alexandria. I chose to take the train out of Alexandria because it's much quicker and a lot less troublesome than going into Union Station. I wanted to ride as much transit as possible during this trip, so my initial plan was to take the Silver Line from Loudon to Roslynn, and then transfer to the Blue Line to get to Alexandria; however, this plan was quickly dashed when I realized that Metro doesn't open on Sundays (the day I would be leaving) until 7 a.m. My train left at 7:18. Instead, I had a family member drive me down.
After a quick breakfast at Bob and Edith's Diner, (really good corn beef hash by the way) I went to the Alexandria station and boarded my train. It was a standard Northeast Regional consist of a very worn P42 and a string of Amfleets. My experience with Amfleets has not been the best; however, I am glad to say that everything worked on this run! No broken doors or bathrooms. No rattling overhead preventing me from sleeping...
Some miscellaneous observations:
- The Fredricksburg station has a German restaurant built into it. (Having taken 5 years of German in middle and high school I would have loved to stop to check it out.) My friend joked that was the best case of "TOD" he had ever seen!
- Richmond Staple Mill is the most Amtrak Amtrak station I've ever seen. It consists of two tracks off of the CSX main with a long, unsheltered platform and an access road for company trucks off to the side. The actual station building itself is a bland, brick building. I was almost expecting to see a few faded "pointless arrows," but they were nowhere to be seen.
- The stretch of line between Richmond Staple Mill and Richmond Main Street is slow. I really do hope they up the speeds on that segment. It would save some travel time. (Maybe this is included in recent state rail plans? I would like to know!)
- Richmond Main Street had a lot of passengers. Despite the fact that most of them were waiting for trains that weren't mine, I was pleasantly surprised.
- The Newport News station is similar to Richmond Staple Mill, although I did see the new station and it looked quite good! My friend told me that the current Newport News station also had an "Amshack" with rotting wood up until about a week ago. Kinda sad I missed it.
My friend met me at the station and we rode the Newport News bus system. As of writing this, I am still in Newport News and will be coming back on Tuesday. I'll be sure to share my return journey then.
Overall, I had a really neat experience on Amtrak south of Washington D.C. I am quite excited about all the improvements Virginia is planning for passenger rail in the next decade. More thoughts will come in due time.
-Shortline
Barbecuing in Chessie's backyard. Host of "Shortline's Rail News & Comment."
