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By Kevin Allen
Rappahannock Nows Staff Writer
Looking for a shorter route between Culpeper and Front Royal, the Norfolk Southern Railway Company is considering the possibility of building the first railroad ever to pass through Rappahannock County.
County Administrator John McCarthy said he heard about the idea during one of his recent trips to Richmond and put the issue on the agenda for Monday’s meeting of the Board of Supervisors.
McCarthy said he heard from a friend at the Virginia Department of Transportation that VDOT is looking at a freight rail line through Rappahannock as one way to reduce truck traffic on Interstate 81. He also said it is rumored that the line would include a tunnel that would pass for four miles beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains south of Front Royal.
Front Royal is a major rail center because the Virginia Inland Port is located there at the intersection of U.S. Routes 340 and 522. The Inland Port is a transfer facility between trucks and rail for containers going to and from the Hampton Roads area.
Norfolk Southern spokesman Robin Chapman said the line could potentially provide the company with smoother operations and more capacity to carry freight in the region.
“What it would do is shorten the distance between Culpeper and Front Royal on the line that comes from the south,” Chapman said. “Currently, we have to go to Manassas and west to Front Royal.”
Virginia is part of Norfolk Southern’s Crescent Corridor between New York and New Orleans, Chapman said. The line between Manassas and Front Royal is a “choke point" in that corridor.
Passenger trains operated by Virginia Railway Express' and other freight trains heading to and from Washington, D.C., cause congestion in the Manassas area. Chapman
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