Senator Mark Warner visited the Shenandoah Valley on Tuesday to tout federal infrastructure funding and discuss constituents' needs. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
Sen. Warner met with about 50 community leaders in Staunton to talk about rail transit and other issues. He touted the Federal Railroad Administration's Corridor ID Program, which was funded by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and has awarded $500,000 to Amtrak to study possible improvements to their Cardinal service. The Cardinal train passes through Staunton and Charlottesville along its route between Chicago and New York City, and Amtrak wants to increase its runs from three times a week to every day.
MARK WARNER: I mean, Staunton has done such a good job on tourism. Having people be able to come down on the train from D.C. area or from further north, here, I think would be great for the community.
One of the attendees was Steve Powell, president of Buckingham Branch Railroad, a freight train company which owns the tracks that Amtrak and CSX use through this area.
STEVE POWELL: Right now, the Amtrak's Cardinal, they have an eastbound and a westbound train that actually meet here … about four miles west of Staunton. Of course, any time a train has to pass itself, it causes a delay, unless it's on double track. Well, we have a single track here, and so basically the passenger train has to pull into the siding and stop to let the other train pass, and the opportunities to do that on our line are not very close together. It's about every 15 miles. … I hope that some of this money can be used to put some infrastructure in place … places that trains can meet each other and pass efficiently.
Warner also visited business leaders in Harrisonburg and Buena Vista.
