For all those who want to see Amtrak extended to Bristol, pay attention to what’s happening in the New River Valley, where efforts to locate a passenger rail station have hit what one key legislator calls “a setback” that has raised alarms about how likely it will be for trains to go further west.
Here’s what the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority was told at last week’s meeting:
Norfolk Southern, which owns the tracks, wants Amtrak’s New River Valley extension to avoid its busy mainline route and instead go from Roanoke to Christiansburg on its lesser-used Virginian line that goes through the Ellett Valley. That would seem a reasonable request except for what that sets in motion down the line. Instead of coming into Christiansburg from the east, the train would be coming in from the west.
The plan had been for the New River passenger rail station to be near the New River Valley Mall. To get the that site from Norfolk Southern’s mainline is fairly straightforward. However, to get to that site from the Virginian line involves a big complication — it would need to go through the Merrimac Tunnel.
That tunnel, built before World War I, is not set up for modern passenger rail standards, the authority was told. It’s a mile long and there’s no way to evacuate passengers in an emergency. The tunnel is narrow, making it difficult for passengers to get out of the train if they had to. To get the tunnel up to National Fire Protection Association standards, it would need three ventilation fans and two vertical shafts — one the equivalent of 15 stories, the other the equivalent of 20 stories — to be able to get rescue workers in and passengers out. Geological studies have found that the soil around the tunnel is “largely poor to very poor quality,” which makes construction difficult — and more expensive.
The cost of extending Amtrak’s route from Roanoke to Christiansburg had initially been estimated at at $257.2 million, with service originally expected in 2025. With the need to renovate the Merrimac Tunnel, the cost has now risen to $785 million, with service not possible until 2030, the authority was told.
There is a cheaper option: The authority was told the train could stop short of the tunnel, somewhere on Cinnabar Road. The cost of that would be $366 million, with service not starting until 2028.
The problem with that: Some authority members worried that meant passenger rail might never get extended to Bristol. For the train to get from the proposed platform on Cinnabar Road to the Norfolk Southern route, it would still need to go through that Merrimac Tunnel — or it would need to back up perhaps as far as the Roanoke Valley to get on the mainline that Norfolk Southern would like it to avoid. Throughout the meeting, authority member Beth Rhinehart — who heads the Bristol Chamber — repeatedly urged fellow members not to do anything that would preclude or complicate a future passenger line to Bristol. In theory, a platform on Cinnabar Road wouldn’t preclude the train from going on to Bristol, but not dealing with the Merrimac Tunnel now raises the question of whether the state will ever be willing to bear those costs.
Two state legislators who have been closely aligned with the push to get Amtrak to Bristol have expressed concern about the rising costs and complications of the New River Valley project.
“I’m disappointed in the rail situation,” said Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt County, and a member of the House Transportation Committee. “If we don’t get on the west side [of the tunnel] we don’t have a direct connection to get to Bristol.”
There’s the prospect of a temporary platform on Cinnabar Road in 2028 with an extension through the Merrimac Tunnel to a permanent station near the New River Valley Mall in 2030, but the cost of that was estimated at $951 million.
“We’ve got to get there, we have to get there,” Austin said, “but this is really a big setback.”
In a statement, state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, said: “This is exactly why it is important for Bristol/SWVA to have a seat at the table and why I sponsored the legislation to make that so. What happens in the NRV has a direct impact on extending rail to/through Bristol. I remain committed to working with all stakeholders to ensure we’re looking at the bigger picture and understand how site selection in the NRV can be advantageous to both regions. We do not need anything getting the train to Bristol off the fastest track.”
This isn’t the first time that the geography and rail lines around the New River Valley has posed a complication for an Amtrak extension to Bristol. About a year ago a study showed that one option through New River would involve a tunnel under the Vickers Heights section of Montgomery County that would drive the total price of a Christiansburg to Bristol route to $1.5 billion. A cheaper alternative, which would avoid the Vickers Heights section, was put at $585 million.
That alternative also envisioned Amtrak taking Norfolk Southern’s mainline to Christiansburg, not the Virginian line. With the Merrimac Tunnel, Amtrak could still avoid that Vickers Heights section, and presumably keep the Christiansburg to Bristol route at the same price, but now the price of getting from Roanoke to Christiansburg has gone up — tripled, in fact, to the point where getting from Roanoke to Christiansburg appears more expensive than getting from Christiansburg to Bristol.
Austin said when looking at the cost of rail, we need to factor in how much traffic that takes off Interstate 81. “Every time we’ve implemented rail access in the west, it’s taken cars off Interstate 81 and Roanoke has exceeded expectations on the two trains we currently have and now we have the opportunity to offer more — every bit of that is redirecting traffic from the surface road.”
There’s a public meeting about New River passenger rail in Blacksburg on Monday from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the community center on 725 Patrick Henry Drive.