Proposal threatens new Lynchburg-Washington D.C. train

RICHMOND — Transportation activists in Lynchburg and Charlottesville reacted strongly Thursday after a state senator from Bristol proposed a state budget amendment that, if passed, could halt plans for a new Washington-to-Lynchburg train.

“Pernicious,” said Rex Hammond, president of the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce, in talking about the proposed change.

“Save the Lynchburg-D.C. train,” read an e-mail from Meredith Richards of Charlottesville, chairman of the Piedmont Rail Coalition in Charlottesville.

The proposal, by Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, would block state funds for “construction of any segment of the TransDominion Express” until “funding for all sections of the corridor from Bristol to Washington, D.C./Richmond is included within the Statewide Rail Plan.”

Del. Shannon Valentine, D-Lynchburg, said she hoped to work with Wampler concerning his measure, which as a budget amendment could override almost all other legislation.

“I don’t believe the train will ever get to Bristol if we don’t get the train from Lynchburg to Washington,” Valentine said.

“What makes this particularly pernicious is that Senator Wampler usually is a member of the budget conference committee,” said Hammond, referring to the 12 legislators who hammer out budget details in the final two weeks of Assembly sessions.

Hammond said he was “burning up the phones” to drum up opposition.

Richards called the amendment “an all-or-nothing” measure, and urged passenger-rail supporters throughout Virginia’s U.S. 29 corridor to contact their legislators to oppose it.

Wampler’s amendment comes as the Commonwealth Transportation Board is expected to discuss, at its February meeting, a pilot project to operate two new daily trains.

The project involves a two-year test program for a pair of trains to Washington. One of the trains would operate from Lynchburg, and the other from Richmond, likely providing round-trip service five days a week.

The expected $17 million cost of operating the trains for two years would be covered from rail funds provided in the state budget two years ago.

One Amtrak train per day already serves the Lynchburg-Charlottesville-Washington corridor.

The TransDominion Express in Wampler’s amendment is a much larger concept of passenger rail service.

Virginia’s statewide rail plan studies the past six years have envisioned the TransDominion Express as passenger service that would operate in a corridor through Bristol, Roanoke, Lynchburg and Richmond. It also would connect to Washington via routes from Lynchburg and Richmond.

The state Department of Rail and Public Transportation proposed developing the passenger service in segments. In December, for the first time, the rail department said startup funds were available for two pilot-project trains from Lynchburg to Washington and Richmond to Washington.

Wampler’s amendment, if it emerges intact from the budget-making process in late February, would require that funds be in place for the entire TransDominion Express concept before any trains could begin operating.

The rail department, in its plan announced in December, did not estimate a cost of operating a complete TransDominion Express system.