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By MAGGIE L. LAWSON
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
High speed trains could one day whisk passengers from Richmond to Washington, D.C. in 87 minutes, according to the Virginia rail and public transportation department.
The agency commenced a study of high speed rail in the RichmondWashington corridor (July 1.
The estimated travel time for the 100-mile trip includes stops at Springfield-Franconia, as well as in Fredericksburg, Alexandria, and other locations, according to Leo Bevon, director of the state’s rail and public transportation department. The trains would travel at 125-150 miles per hour.
“High speed rail has real potential to relieve traffic in the 1-95 corridor,” said Bevon last week in a speech to the Reston Board of Commerce.
The Virginia state legislature last year provided $425,000 for the analysis.
Bevon said the state also is considering high speed rail service between Richmond and Norfolk.
Jay Westbrook, a spokesman for CSX Transportation Inc., the owner of the track in both corridors, said his firm is “very openminded” about having high-speed passenger service in the Virginia corridors, but he added some hurdles will have to be overcome to make the project feasible.
, CSX deals almost exclusively in freight, and the company does not want that operation to be sidetracked to accommodate passenger trains. In the Richmond-Washington D.C. corridor alone, the rail company runs 20-30 freight trains per day, said Westbrook. The tracks also accommodates AMTRAK trains and commuter trains from Fredericksburg to downtown D.C.
“We’re willing to share use between freight and passenger service, but we have to make sure the passenger use returns an investment to our shareholders,” he said.
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