|
|
||
VRE cancels Fri. morning service on Fredericksburg line.
UPDATE:
Virginia Railway Express has canceled all train service on the Fredericksburg Line for Friday. No morning or afternoon trains will run. Manassas Line trains will operate as scheduled. Date published: 8/5/2010
By Kelly Hannon
A freight train derailment at Quantico shut down two railroad tracks this afternoon, blocking all train traffic and prolonging the evening commute for hundreds of Fredericksburg area residents riding Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express. Seven railcars carrying coal on a southbound 79-car CSX Corp. freight train with two locomotives derailed a half-mile south of the Quantico train station, said CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan. No injuries were reported. The cause of the derailment is under investigation, Sullivan said. He could not comment on whether today’s heat , which reached into the upper 90s, was a factor. The freight train was traveling from Cumberland, Md., to Newport News. Coal spilled out of the derailed cars. “We’ve got people on the way to clean it up,” Sullivan said this evening. CSX couldn’t say how long the clean-up would take, the extent of the damage, or how long the tracks would be closed. The incident affected 2,300 Amtrak passengers riding northbound and southbound trains through Virginia, including the Auto Train to Florida. Several thousand VRE passengers in the Fredericksburg area were also affected. For updates on Friday morning service, VRE urged Fredericksburg Line passengers to check vre.org and Train Talk e-mail bulletins. When the derailment occurred around 3 p.m., only one of seven evening VRE trains on the Fredericksburg Line had gotten beyond Quantico. It was Train 301, which departs Union Station at 12:55 p.m. Manassas Line VRE trains were not affected. Initially, VRE was told by CSX it could not move evening trains past Franconia–Springfield, said Mark Roeber, VRE’s manager of government relations and public affairs. VRE arranged buses to pick passengers up at Franconia–Springfield, where there was a Metro station, shelter from the weather as thunderstorms bore down, and quick access to High Occupancy Vehicle lanes on Interstate 95, Roeber said. VRE also opened its Metro option, allowing VRE passengers to show Metro personnel
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
|
|
||||||||||||
