New Amtrak service in Va. beats annual goal in six months
(The following story by Ray Reed appeared on the Lynchburg News Advance website on May 20, 2010.)
LYNCHBURG, Va. The new Northeast Regional passenger train serving Lynchburg has met the ridership goals for its first year and did it in only six months.
Amtraks goal, when it started Lynchburgs second daily train in October, was to carry 51,000 passengers the first year. By the end of March, it already had topped that goal by 4,000 riders, according to Amtrak and the state Department of Rail and Public Transportation.
The Northeast Regional has just livened things up around here immensely, said Garland Harper, an Amtrak station agent.
I didnt know you could put over 200 people on a train in Lynchburg at one time, said Harper, whos been handling Amtrak duties in the city for 31 years.
Most of the people boarding in Lynchburg are headed north, Harper said.
Many of the passengers are retirement-age people visiting relatives in states where they used to live. Others are college students going home, he said.
The Northeast Regional serves Charlottesville and Northern Virginia, and also carries passengers to New York and Boston. It leaves Lynchburg at 7:38 a.m. on weekdays and returns at 8:36 pm.
Im curious to see what the summer will bring, Harper said. Its usually the heaviest travel season.
Ridership in March was almost 12,000 passengers on the Northeast Regional in Virginia, a number possibly enhanced by an 80 percent on-time performance in Lynchburg.
Coming to work is a lot of fun now, Harper said, comparing it to days when just one agent could take care of all Amtrak business during an overnight shift at the Kemper Street Station.
The route has generated $2.8 million in revenue, topping the goal of almost $2.6 million for the year, Amtrak officials said.
In Charlottesville alone, 8,700 people got on or off Amtrak trains in March. That was a 68 percent increase in riders compared to March of last year.
Lynchburgs other daily train, the Crescent, continued doing well overall on its New York-to-New Orleans route, said Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero.
Although riders in Lynchburg have decreased for the Crescents 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. arrivals, ridership along its full distance is up 1 percent, Romero said.
Overall, Amtrak met its schedule just 52 percent of the time in March at Virginia stations, which include the Norfolk, Williamsburg, Richmond, Fredericksburg and Danville areas in addition to Northern Virginia. Still, ridership statewide increased by 28 percent, to almost 102,000 riders for the month.
