Head of Virginia Passenger Rail Authority updates Commonwealth Transportation Board

Six years ago, the General Assembly passed legislation creating the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority as part of an initiative to invest in a new generation of rail projects.

On March 17, executive director D.J. Stadtler updated the Commonwealth Transportation Board on VPRA’s capital budget for the year and ridership numbers. He also provided a basic definition of what the government entity does. (view the VPRA presentation here)

“What we can do is we can provide the infrastructure, the rail infrastructure, infrastructure across the Commonwealth that others are going to ride on,” Stadtler said.

The VPRA has contracts with Amtrak and the Virginia Railway Express to provide services. Amtrak currently provides six state-funded routes a day, down from eight due to construction of a new Long Bridge across the Potomac River. That does not count the long-distance Cardinal or Crescent, nor a train service funded by the state of North Carolina.

The enabling legislation for VPRA requires the executive to brief the CTB once a year and Stadtler broke that down into I-95 Corridor capital projects, a fourth track through Alexandria, and other initiatives to increase reliability and efficiency of passenger rail. Perhaps the most significant is the work at Long Bridge which has a cost estimate approaching $2.7 billion.

“When we first started this journey we went to the freight railroads and said what do we need to do to add more passenger service?” Stadtler asked. “And CSX very clearly said the biggest bottleneck in Virginia and really on the whole east coast is the Long Bridge. It’s a 120 year old bridge. Two tracks go over the Potomac River.”

A very cold winter has delayed some of the work, work that has been divided into one design-build package for the north side and another for the south. Stadtler said the VPRA continues to work with the D.C. government on waivers to allow construction to happen outside of a window that goes from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.

“We’re engaged with the mayor’s office,” said Nick Donahue, Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation. “We’re trying to see if we can get some flexibility here. I want to be clear, we’re not trying to pile drive at 2 a.m. we’re trying to just add some additional hours there.”

There is also work underway on the “Western Rail Corridor” which travels through Manassas on its way to Christiansburg. Construction is also well underway to improve tracks around Christiansburg to accommodate extension of the Northeast Regional sometime in 2027.

“Norfolk Southern—on our behalf, we’re writing the checks—is creating a new platform actually at the old station building that was providing passenger rail from 1906 or so to 1979,” Stadtler said. “We were fortunate enough to come up with a deal with Norfolk Southern where the train’s coming right back where it always was.”

A layover site is also being built nine miles to the west at Radford to provide a layover for the train which turns around the next day to make the trip back up to New York City.

One CTB member noted that the rail map shows no connections between Richmond and Charlottesville. Stadtler said the VPRA purchased right-of-way from CSX for future expansion. A connection is theoretically possible today but the tracks themselves are not in good condition.

“Right now, the fastest you’ll be able to go on that line is 25 miles an hour so its not really conducive for passenger rail,” Stadtler said.

Stadtler added that the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation is working on securing funding from the Federal Railroad Administration to study what improvements are needed. This is preliminary work for a concept known as the Commonwealth Corridor.

“The first question is like what might it cost,” Donahue said. “Because today I don’t even think we could tell you if you wanted it to go at 79 miles per hour what that cost would be.”

Donahue said those questions are more likely to be asked and answered now that VPRA owns the line as opposed to a freight company.

Virginia first began investing in state trains in 2009 with the first regional services beginning service in October of that year. Ridership in the first year was 137,038 and that number has jumped to 1,474,923 in FY2025.

Fares make up about 11 percent of VPRA’s nearly $8 billion budget for the next five years. The CTB is expected to take action on the VPRA budget in April.

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