Not just more, but better rail

A consortium dedicated to improving train travel in Central Virginia is gaining steam.

More power to them. The area needs additional passenger service.

It also needs better passenger service.

The Piedmont Rail Coalition has been chugging hard to persuade the state to prioritize the U.S. 29 corridor, from Lynchburg to Washington, in any plans to increase train service. Another route being looked at closely is the Richmond-Washington line. Partnership with Amtrak, which already operates on both routes, is the likely means of expansion, partly because the federal government expects Amtrak to shift to new regional and state-based cooperative arrangements.

Amtrak already provides one train daily to D.C. to serve the Charlottesville area. Another runs thrice weekly to Chicago. However, the D.C. train is almost always fully booked by passengers originating farther south, and there is seldom space for local riders. A second train, or additional cars on the existing one, would ease the problem.

With skyrocketing gasoline prices, many travelers are ready to move from automobiles to trains. And with airlines simultaneously raising prices and cutting services, passengers are primed to shift some trips from planes to trains.

Trouble is, Amtrak is faltering, too. A previous effort to improve service to Charlottesville failed when Amtrak provided an extra car — but one that was unpleasant and uncomfortable to ride. Passengers did not flock to the opportunity.

And Amtrak’s on-time record is worse than many of the airlines’. The New Orleans-New York train (which serves Charlottesville and D.C.) is on schedule only 68 percent of the time, and the New York-Chicago train (which loops down into Virginia) is on the mark only 18 percent of the time.

And the reason for that is largely because Amtrak does not own the track on which its trains ride and cannot control the flow of traffic. It shares time with freight trains, and freight companies own the track. Amtrak and the freight lines work out agreements for scheduling, of course, but in practical application Amtrak trains often still must wait for freight traffic to pass.

And freight traffic is also tightly scheduled; a backup in Chicago can

affect a timetable in Richmond or Charlotte or Atlanta.

This problem is slated to get worse, as there are simultaneous efforts by still other interests to put even more freight traffic on the rails, to relieve congestion on highways.

Increasing freight traffic makes sense, because it can be more efficient than truck transportation. Increasing rail passenger service also makes sense, because it can be more efficient than automobile travel.

But rail service cannot be efficient for anyone if the tracks become gridlocked.

For the short term, tighter scheduling can help. So can better maintenance of tracks, to prevent any deterioration that slows down trains. So can improved technologies that help trains move safely faster.

But in the long term, we are going to need more train track. That’s true even if the freight lines are looking to meet only their own demand. It is all the more critical as we seek to add expanded passenger service.