HAMPTON ROADS – Amtrak passengers traveling from the Hampton Roads area to Washington, D.C., may have to do so via bus in October while crews do infrastructure work near Union Station.
The project, called “Pause for Progress,” is scheduled for Oct. 16 through Oct. 26 and will affect Northeast Regional train service between Hampton Roads and Washington, D.C. It is estimated to cost $8.65 million.
Passengers traveling from Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Newport News and Williamsburg will have the option to take the Amtrak Virginia Express Bus Service to Washington’s Union Station during the work. The Northeast Regional will only go as far as the Alexandria station, but there will be the Amtrak Virginia Bus Bridge service to connect Alexandria and Washington.
The project will replace a “critical track and control point within the First Street Tunnel”, known as “A-Interlocking,” that’s responsible for routing Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express trains between Union Station and Virginia, according to Amtrak’s press release.
Karina Romero, Virginia Passenger Rail Authority communications manager, said they chose these dates because they were between the summer holidays and the winter holidays.
She said the current tracks have been there “a very long time,” and have begun failing, which has led to numerous delays and trains traveling at significantly lower speed.
“There’s a 10-mile-per-hour limit right now, whereas, normally, you probably can go about 30 miles per hour through that interlocking,” she said. “It needs to be replaced not only for safety reasons, but for on-time performance.”
Romero noted that Amtrak has been highly detailed in its planning and there are no concerns about exceeding the timeline. She said that the new track will be built off-site in parallel with the current track being removed. Once both parts are completed, the new track will be installed.
She said passengers will be contacted soon if they have trips during the time period and need to reschedule or cancel.
Amtrak said penalty-free refunds will also be available if the change was initiated by Amtrak, the new options are inconvenient for passengers and there was a change to travel time or mode.
