By KELLY HANNON

Two new trains that stop in the Fredericksburg area are launching this week, giving drivers fed up with stop-and-go traffic another way to their destinations.

A three-car train on Virginia Railway Express will pull into the Fredericksburg station Monday at 5:05 a.m. The train will stop next at Leeland Road at 5:12 and Brooke at 5:18, then express out of Stafford County to Woodbridge at 5:44. After that, the next stops are Alexandria and Crystal City in Virginia L'Enfant Plaza and Union Station in Washington, where it arrives at 6:29.

The train fulfills a long-held wish among Fredericksburg Line riders, who have for years implored VRE to add an earlier, express train. After 18 years of asking, it has arrived.

The express train leaves 10 minutes ahead of VRE's earliest train at 5:15. Plus, it shaves 13 minutes off the standard 97-minute travel time between Fredericksburg and Union Station, giving workers a chance to reach their desks by 7 a.m.

If travelers need a later train, Amtrak will provide one the following day.

On Tuesday, Amtrak launches a new northbound and southbound daily train with stops at Quantico and Fredericksburg. The train is part of a government-supported effort to boost train travel in the Interstate 95 corridor between Richmond and Washington.

While the VRE train is becoming part of the schedule for the foreseeable future, the Amtrak train has to prove itself within three years. The train's passenger target is an average of 3,500 riders a month, or about 42,000 passengers a year.

Virginia is contributing $2.1 million during the first year of the Amtrak train's service, then $2.7 million in the second and third years. If the train becomes permanent, Virginia or Amtrak has to find a permanent source of operating funds.

The money is part of a $17.1 million revenue-sharing agreement between Virginia and Amtrak that also added a daily Lynchburg-to-Washington train last fall. That train, which stops in Culpeper, has been a runaway hit. Amtrak and Virginia hoped it would attract 51,000 passengers over the first 12 months. In the first six months it had already carried 55,025 people, according to Amtrak figures.