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By SUSETTE RITENOUR
Rappahannock New* Special Writer
The commuter nightmare: you get a late start, find yourself in traffic and you’re a half hour late for work. Just the thought makes you want to stay in bed forever.
Never fear, as commuters become an ever increasing majority of the population, politicans will move mountains to make them happy.
Tom Waldron of the Virginia Railway Express agreed that a great deal of financial and congressional maneuvering took place in order for the VRE to open last month.
Now, according to Waldron, the hard times are over and the Express is a big hit. “The response has been overwhelming. It’s very good. People are telling us that we’ve changed their life forever,” he said.
The service connects Manassas and Fredericksburg with Union Station in the District of Columbia. There are eight trains, each with the capacity to carry 470 passengers.
Residents as far out as Manassas and Fredericksburg are now hopping a train for the ride to work, a convenience onced reserved only for city slickers commuting to and from Manhattan.
The express, an Amtrak-type train, is a joint venture between the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and the Potomac-Rappahannock Transportation District. It has two southern lines into Washington, D.C., carrying about 1,000 passengers a day on each line, said Waldron.
The Fredericksburg line will travel north-south along the Potomac River between Fredericksburg and Union Station in Washington. The Manassas line will operate eastwest between Broad Run-Manassas Airport and Union Station.
The Express has stations at Alexandria, Crystal City, L’Enfant Plaza and Union Station that are all within walking distance of Metrorail. Each station is fully handicapped-accessible with mobile lifts to assist disabled persons on and off the train.
The jurisdictions participating are Fairfax, Prince William, Stafford, Manassas, Manassas Park and Fredericksburg. According to the VRE, Alexandria and Arlington are contributing to the commuter rail.
For a while it seemed the commuter rail might not come to pass. The VRE needed to secure congressional approval of an agreement with Conrail, which owns the track leading to Union Station. The VRE needed to cap Conrail’s liability for the Express before it would allow it to use the tracks.
When congressional big wigs nodded their approval over the in
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