Share Email Print RSS

All aboard?

On a Friday morning in late January, Richmond's Main Street Station is the scene of its usual amount of weekday bustle; which is to say that it's dead silent, save for the sounds of Lite-98 FM wafting through the audio system.

There are six people on the station's second floor. One is a reporter, another is a security guard. The other four are passengers awaiting the arrival of the two Amtrak trains scheduled to stop at the station before noon. One train is coming from Washington D.C. , the other from Newport News . Both are late; this is normal.

The southbound #67 pulls in at 10:25 a.m., 13 minutes behind schedule. Six people get off, one gets on. The stop takes less than three minutes.

The northbound #94 arrives at 11:05 a.m., nearly 30 minutes late. Three people get on, none get off. The train is stopped for less than 90 seconds. The next train won’t arrive until 5:12 p.m., that is, if it's on-time.

It's been more than a year since Main Street Station reopened as a destination for passenger rail service, this after a 28-year hiatus. Efforts to restore the 103-year-old facility resulted in a $51.6 million restoration project, the first phase of which culminated with a grand-reopening ceremony in December 2003.

In the days leading up to the invitation-only event, Richmond City officials estimated that the station would serve an average of 150 passengers daily. That it may, just not anytime soon.

According to Amtrak, from Dec. 18, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2005 a total of 11,837 rides were taken either to or from Main Street Station. That’s an average of 31 passengers a day , roughly a fifth of what the city had hoped for.

So, why such low turnout? The reasons are many, but the biggest is the lack of reliability. The problem reared its head less than 24 hours after Main Street Station resumed service, when an early-morning derailment in Alexandria shut down all rail traffic between Washington D.C. and Richmond.

The 100-mile corridor is consistently plagued by congestion. An end-to-end trip takes about three hours, sometimes less, but usually more.

"It's not uncommon to be late by 40 minutes or more," said Alan Tobias , manager of passenger rail programs for the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation. "It's very hard for people to accept that."

Another reason contributing to low ridership at Main Street is that area residents have been boarding trains at the Staples Mill Station since the late-1970s. In fiscal year 2004, 233,500 rides were taken to or from Staples Mill. The two stations are only 8.5 miles apart, yet a trip between them takes an average of 27 minutes.

"It's a very slow, painful ride," said Tobias. The primary point of congestion between the two stations is the ACCA Rail Yard in Henrico County. The depot is a major transfer point for CSX Corp. , the freight conglomerate which owns much of the railroad tracks along the eastern seaboard, including both sets that run between Richmond and D.C.

This March, a $12 million project will begin to address the bottleneck at ACCA through a series of rail improvements. The result should save passengers five minutes, though not before 2007. Until then, it seems unlikely that ridership at Main Street Station will increase significantly.

"That's a major hurdle to overcome before [Main Street] becomes a major station," Tobias said of the ACCA bottleneck.

But Main Street Station wasn't renovated just to be a train station. The city envisions the building as a multimodal transportation center for Downtown, complete with bus, taxi and shuttle service. Plans to revive the city's electric trolley service are even in the works.

Early last December, the GRTC Transit System launched the Lunch Time Express : a network of free bus rides that operates during the week from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. along a route through downtown and the Shockoe area.

"We're getting a lot of people taking the bus in and being dropped off at Main Street Station," said Viktoria Badger , principal planner for the City of Richmond.

Badger said the next immediate step toward increasing the usage of Main Street Station will involve the development of a parking lot beneath the I-95 interchange trestles, popularly deemed the "spaghetti works." That project should be completed within 12 to 16 months.

"We’re still ironing out those issues," said Badger, who acknowledged that a local architect has been contracted by the city to redevelop the expansive train shed on the back of the station.

In addition, renovations to the station’s third and fourth floors are nearing completion and the area will be leased out as office space within the next few months.

"We're still looking at how the station fits into Richmond’s needs right now," said Badger.

One need it has readily filled is as a location for events and receptions. According to the Richmond Metropolitan Authority , which operates and maintains the building, 27 events were held there in 2004, and 12 have been booked for 2005. Main Street Station can be reserved for up to four hours for between $1,000 and $2,000, the fee depending on the nature of the event and organization.

So, while Main Street Station might not be the best place to catch a train, it’s a great place to throw a party.