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Virginia Railway Express has placed the first of its refurbished ex-C&NW gallery cars in service. I have posted a story and photos on my website at http://www.stevedunham.50megs.com/crossroads.html
------------------ Steve Dunham Literalman@aol.com http://www.stevedunham.50megs.com/
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Steve, Interesting articles. I periodically travel to the Virgina area...are there any plans to extend VRE service to weekends? When I travel back east, I work in Reston and am not able to get to a station in time to ride VRE. In the LA area, Metrolink operates weekend service only on lines not served by Amtrak. As for VRE, though both the Fredericksburg and Manassas lines have some Amtrak service, the Manassas line has such light service that a couple of weekend round-trips would be useful. Mike Palmer
Posts: 874 | From: South Bay (LA County), Calif, USA | Registered: Aug 2000
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No, unfortunately VRE has no plans to run weekend service--wishes, yes, but no plans. As you noted, the Manassas service is particularly sparse on weekends. Even the Fredericksburg line, which I commute on, can be difficult to ride on weekends, because the earliest return train is around 6 pm on Saturdays, and on Sundays the Amtrak trains often are sold out. If you want to keep up with goings-on at VRE, you can subscribe to the Train Talk e-mail service from the VRE website at www.vre.org.
------------------ Steve Dunham Literalman@aol.com http://www.stevedunham.50megs.com/
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Steve, Thanks for the info. I'll have to plan a free weekday to ride the VRE I guess. When I am out that way I usually go to the Manassas station at least once to see the last VRE and the Southbound Crescent. Not much freight activity for a double track line. I actually see more activity at the Alexandria station (including a late evening CSX trash train) but even there the afternoon/evening Amtrak service is not frequent enough to get a round trip. Back to gallery cars: CalTrain (ex-SP) in the San Francisco bay area uses similar, but older cars. The upstairs single seat decks are great for the able bodied, if you can make it up the staircase, but woe to anyone else. The seats all face forward, though. MP
Posts: 874 | From: South Bay (LA County), Calif, USA | Registered: Aug 2000
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"I usually go to the Manassas station at least once to see the last VRE and the Southbound Crescent. Not much freight activity for a double track line."
One coal train goes to a power plant in North Alexandria, and some freight goes up the Corridor, mostly at night as far as I know, but you are right--not much freight between Manassas and Alexandria, which is one reason why NS was amenable to those off-peak VRE trains. Most of the freight to and from the South branches off at a yard and junction about a mile west of the Manassas station and goes via Hagerstown, Md. Even if you are on foot, it's an easy walk. You can see the fringe of the yard from the station, and there are at least two grade crossings on the wye, so you can walk or drive into the middle of the action. A fair amount of freight goes through there. Also, the first Saturday in June is the Manassas Railway Festival. It takes place right around the station. There were about 30,000 people attending this year. It's worth going to if you should be in the area at that time.
------------------ Steve Dunham Literalman@aol.com http://www.stevedunham.50megs.com/
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