Hampton Roads/Norfolk/Newport News NE Regional Service

Here's an interesting nugget on the success Megabus has had operating from Main St Station in Richmond. It is from a current Richmond planning document (large PDF).

Due to its central location and historic features, Main Street Station has evolved into a hub of multimodal transportation for the Richmond region. Currently, Amtrak’s Northeast
Regional line provides daily service to Newport News, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other northeast destinations from Main Street Station. In 2012,
32 trains per week stopped at the station with 36,219 passenger boardings and alightings for the year. Additionally, in December 2010, Megabus began service to and from
Richmond via Main Street Station, linking Richmond to six other major cities along the east coast. The low-cost bus carrier provides passengers with access to Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Washington, Hampton, Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte. In 2012, Megabus carried 126,783 passengers to or from Main Street Station, showing a strong demand
for connections from Richmond to Washington, DC and southeastern destinations. Both Amtrak and Megabus have seen steady ridership increases at Main Street Station.
Richmond is well located to be a critical passenger rail station along the east coast. With the recent extension of Amtrak Service to Norfolk and plans for high-speed rail to
Hampton Roads and Charlotte, Richmond would be at the connection between these two high-speed rail services and the northeast corridor. Main Street Station is a critical
connection for these rail services when full service to the station can be provided. Main Street Station is adjacent to downtown and its nexus of employment density and other
activity centers and is centrally located within the region.

July will see a 10 minute savings between Richmond and Norfolk, permitting the AM northbound Norfolk departure to go from 4:50am to 5:00am and still keep the same arrival in DC.

This profile of Thelma Drake (VA's point person for passenger rail) says:

while people might grumble about the 4:50 a.m. boarding time [at Norfolk for the weekday train to Washington], here's a little bit of good news - beginning in July, Drake said, the trains will begin traveling at 79 mph, up from 65 mph, and the boarding time will be moved up to 5 a.m.

Reading between the lines, I take Ms Drake to be referring to 79 mph service Petersburg-Suffolk 52 miles of straight track.

52 miles at 65 miles per hour takes 48 minutes
52 miles at 79 miles per hour takes 40 minutes

That, and a little more through the straight sections at the southern end, should get you all 10 minutes.

Arlington wrote:July will see a 10 minute savings between Richmond and Norfolk, permitting the AM northbound Norfolk departure to go from 4:50am to 5:00am and still keep the same arrival in DC.

This profile of Thelma Drake (VA's point person for passenger rail) says:

while people might grumble about the 4:50 a.m. boarding time [at Norfolk for the weekday train to Washington], here's a little bit of good news - beginning in July, Drake said, the trains will begin traveling at 79 mph, up from 65 mph, and the boarding time will be moved up to 5 a.m.

Reading between the lines, I take Ms Drake to be referring to 79 mph service Petersburg-Suffolk 52 miles of straight track.

52 miles at 65 miles per hour takes 48 minutes
52 miles at 79 miles per hour takes 40 minutes

That, and a little more through the straight sections at the southern end, should get you all 10 minutes.

That's probably worth another 2-3% in ridership growth this year alone.

What is the future of Staples Mill? Right now the big story is how the success of new NEC service means that parking overflows by 50 spaces a day (a typical, recent story is here: http://wtvr.com/2013/05/18/parking-nigh ... -amatrack/)

Since it lacks direct (no intersections) freeway access, It seems to me that Staples Mill should, in the long run, be a "town center" kind of station, like New Rochelle or New Carrollton. Such town center developments (with future local rail connections to downtown Richmonds) work pretty well at the crossing of two arterial roads (US 33 and VA 356) which are ringed (further away) by freeways (the triangle of I-64, I-295, and I-95)

And, while we're at it, Richmond would need a new pure "Rte 128" (freeway / park-and-ride) station, where the railroad crosses near an interstate, either at I-295 (on its northern, east-west leg) or all the way up north at Doswell VA (http://goo.gl/maps/coi2i) (where I-95, the Buckingham Branch to Charlottesville, and the NEC trains could all meet).

Acca Yard gets a little press in Richmond:
http://www.richmond.com/city-life/why-r ... f6878.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Arlington wrote:July will see a 10 minute savings between Richmond and Norfolk, permitting the AM northbound Norfolk departure to go from 4:50am to 5:00am and still keep the same arrival in DC.

This profile of Thelma Drake (VA's point person for passenger rail) says:

while people might grumble about the 4:50 a.m. boarding time [at Norfolk for the weekday train to Washington], here's a little bit of good news - beginning in July, Drake said, the trains will begin traveling at 79 mph, up from 65 mph, and the boarding time will be moved up to 5 a.m.

Reading between the lines, I take Ms Drake to be referring to 79 mph service Petersburg-Suffolk 52 miles of straight track.

52 miles at 65 miles per hour takes 48 minutes
52 miles at 79 miles per hour takes 40 minutes

That, and a little more through the straight sections at the southern end, should get you all 10 minutes.

A few observations from some recent trips between Norfolk and DC:

The majority of the ride between Norfolk and Petersburg is already operating at 79MPH. Between Petersburg and Richmond is also mostly 79mph. In fact, on my 3 most recent trips from Norfolk to Washington, we arrived at Petersburg around 6:08AM, almost 20 minutes before the 6:27 scheduled departure time at PTB. Of course we sat at Petersburg for 20 minutes before heading on to Richmond. Also, all three times we arrived at Richmond at approx. 6:58, with a scheduled arrival time of 7:03 and departure of 7:10. It seems that this has been fairly consistent for the past few months or so. As it stood on my trip this morning, we had about 25 minutes of extra waiting time just between Norfolk and RVR for nothing other than to "stick to the schedule". I would say there is room to move the departure time up 15 minutes, maybe even 20.

Almost all of the trip between RVR and NFK was made at 79mph (with slowdowns going through Suffolk and Chesapeake). Overall it is a very quick and smooth ride. On the other hand, it seems the max speed on the tracks between RVR and WAS is 70mph. I never saw anything more than 71mph on my 3 recent trips. In fact, on 2 of those trips southbound, we never maxed out over 50mph (they were both in the afternoon on over 90 degree days, so I'm guessing it's the 20mph reduction for a CSX heat restriction - BUT as soon as we hit NS track it was back up to 79mph with no heat restrictions - it seems NS is more lenient with their heat restrictions). It also seems 70mph is what Amtrak has figured into its time tables because we were a few minutes early to every station between RVR and WAS, even getting into WAS 15 min early on all my northbound trips. My question is why are trains only maxing out at 70mph vice 79 on the CSX track from RVR to WAS, especially given all the recent improvements the state has put into that corridor? I know the extra 9mph isn't much, but every bit helps!

Overall the new Norfolk service seems fairly good. With a little schedule adjustment I think they could get the departure time moved to around 5:10AM, which I think would help ridership a good amount (psychologically the difference between a 4something departure and a 5 something departure is huge). Seeing 79mph on the RVM-WAS side would shave another few minutes off. Then I think you then begin to compete with rush hour driving times between the 3-city pairs (NFK-RVM-WAS), which is what you really need to attract more ridership. Also, whatever happened to "Train may depart up to 10 min prior to scheduled time" for smaller stations along a route?

I know there are a lot of complexities involved with all of this, including working with host railroads on non-Amtrak corridors, but these are just my casual observations based on recent experience.

Traffic light goes up at Staples Mill. http://www.nbc12.com/story/22502147/tra ... ak-station" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just flashing orange now, but it should be fully functional on Thursday.

jstolberg wrote:Traffic light goes up at Staples Mill. http://www.nbc12.com/story/22502147/tra ... ak-station" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just flashing orange now, but it should be fully functional on Thursday.

Sounds as if the locals consider that a pretty significant improvement to address a major problem. I would imagine this will yet again add to Amtrak Virginia's burgeoning ridership numbers.

Anyone know where this $80 is going (to add a 2nd and 3rd NFK train)?

$80 million between 2016 and 2018 for track and other infrastructure upgrades necessary to add a second and third train to Amtrak's service between Norfolk and Richmond.

Arlington wrote:Anyone know where this $80 is going (to add a 2nd and 3rd NFK train)?

$80 million between 2016 and 2018 for track and other infrastructure upgrades necessary to add a second and third train to Amtrak's service between Norfolk and Richmond.

Not sure but this article in the Richmond Times Dispatch mentions an $80 million investments in passenger rail as follows:

Under the proposed spending plan, the 14-county, four-city Richmond district will receive $774 million for highway work and more than $148 for major rail projects.
The funding includes $62 million for improvements to the heavily traveled Interstate 64-Interstate 95 overlap area in Richmond, and nearly $80 million to improve railroad service between the Richmond-Petersburg area and Washington.

Do you guys think it would be a good idea to have a station in Suffolk, especially since it happens to be one of the last largest towns along the route from NFK to Petersburg?

njt/mnrrbuff wrote:Do you guys think it would be a good idea to have a station in Suffolk, especially since it happens to be one of the last largest towns along the route from NFK to Petersburg?

Absolutely. Suffolk is an obvious infill choice, though Chesapeake has been interested in a station as well.

The issue is distance intervals as well. Chesapeake might be so close to NFK. Suffolk is one of those towns that probably would be a reasonable location for a station along the route. The distance would be reasonable for Amtrak station standards, while you are still in the Hampton Roads Region. Once you get west of Suffolk, there is almost nothing, civilization wise until you get to Petersburg(Ettrick).

njt/mnrrbuff wrote:Do you guys think it would be a good idea to have a station in Suffolk, especially since it happens to be one of the last largest towns along the route from NFK to Petersburg?

The plan is to add a Bowers Hill Station near Cheasapeake. It is shown in the maps in the Final EIS for the Hampton Roads services that was approved last year. With the additional funding available for passenger rail projects, building a station there may become part of the Norfolk service expansion.

afiggatt wrote:

njt/mnrrbuff wrote:Do you guys think it would be a good idea to have a station in Suffolk, especially since it happens to be one of the last largest towns along the route from NFK to Petersburg?

The plan is to add a Bowers Hill Station near Cheasapeake. It is shown in the maps in the Final EIS for the Hampton Roads services that was approved last year. With the additional funding available for passenger rail projects, building a station there may become part of the Norfolk service expansion.

That is the plan, and if you had to chose Suffolk vs Bowers HIll, then Bowers Hill makes more sense as the "Beltway" station (similar to Boston's 128 station and Washington's New Carrollton). Bowers Hill has a great catchment area.

But Suffolk sneaks in from time-to-time given that its where the Petersburg-Suffolk straight section has to slow for the turn eastward and the Kilby connection--trains must slow anyway. So, for example, the Hampton Roads MPO shows a Suffolk station in *some* maps like the one above from a recent powerpoint.