Marty Gordon
While a feasibility study on the condition of rail lines from Roanoke to Christiansburg has been slowed because of Norfolk Southern’s hesitancy, another southwest Virginia community is taking its own steps to convince Amtrak to come to this end of the state.
The city of Bristol has released its findings forecasting annual ridership for Christiansburg to be 40,200 and that a Bristol stop would generate an annual ridership of 23,600. Bristol supports the NRV effort since it would be a stop before passenger rail stretches to deep southwest Virginia.
Currently, a stop in Roanoke is averaging 97,600 per year.
The Bristol study was a joint effort with the Virginia Tobacco Regional Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Appalachian Regional Commission and the city of Bristol.
New River Valley leaders had hoped passenger rail service could start by 2020, but the overall project has come to a screeching halt with no new start time.
Recently, the town of Christiansburg purchased additional property near the aquatics center to provide land for either a platform or a station.
Christiansburg purchased five parcels of land, consisting of 6.82 acres with the majority lying to the south of the current double tracks.
Initially, the Virginia General Assembly approved $350,000 for a study to determine what improvements to the current freight line would be needed in southwest Virginia to prepare it for passenger service. The study has to have the cooperation of Norfolk and Western, but so far, that has not happened.
Ray Smoot serves as the co-chair of a group called “New River Valley Passenger Rail 2020.”
“The town of Christiansburg, with the leadership of Mayor Barber, has been proactive in acquiring a site for a passenger station for passenger rail to serve the New River Valley,” he said recently.
“The next step to bring passenger rail to the New River Valley is for Norfolk Southern to move forward on the request of the Commonwealth to undertake an operations study, which would identify what improvements to the railroad are necessary to carry passenger trains. The Commonwealth has committed funding for the study and is awaiting Norfolk Southern’s agreement to proceed,” he said.
The train station would be owned on a regional basis by localities throughout in the NRV, and early estimates say the facility would cost an estimated $4 million.
Passenger service ended in the area in the mid-60s, but Norfolk Southern continued its own version till 1979 when it was stopped entirely.
