Amtrak's Fredericksburg Problem

Armchair Adventures

for June 24, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

Wrong Track with Amtrak

            We all have a tendency to think common sense will prevail; to believe that

things obviously wrong will be righted. But when they endure over years, causing serious problems or at the very least a major inconvenience to many, we think that some mysterious "someone" will do something about them.

            If you travel by Amtrak from Fredericksburg to anyplace else, you will have encountered what I am about to write about. If neither you nor anyone you know ever rides the rails on Amtrak to parts beyond, well, forget about this. Move on to other things.

            Several weeks ago I took my son to Fredericksburg's venerable passenger station to catch a southbound train. It was a Sunday morning. As the time for the scheduled 8:50 a.m. train neared, a familiar guessing game gradually spread through the crowd.

            There were several dozen travelers and wishers-well scattered beside the tracks, bags in hand, awaiting what I soon learned were both southbound and northbound trains.

            As if it were not weird enough that the two tracks are numbered 2 and 3, (rather than 1 and 2), nobody seemed to know which train would arrive on which  track.

            Some more assertive folks assured others that the southbound would be on the side nearest downtown, while northbound would be on the opposite side.

            I asked the gentleman who had said this how he had made that determination. "Well, he said, trains keep to the right like cars do on the road." He hesitated. "I guess," he added.

            Not wanting to sound like a know-it-all, or a railroad oracle, I said, no, that isn't right. Trains, I told him, follow no such rule and I had many times caught northbound trains on either of the two tracks. "I suspect," I told him," that rail traffic managers route the trains according to other trains using those same tracks, in order to maintain separation for safety's sake.

            An older woman arrived with big bags. A younger woman with her said the elderly lady had missed the train the previous day because they had been on the wrong side when the train arrived. "And it didn't wait," she said.

            When the train pulls into the station and you find yourself on the wrong side, you must grab luggage and run as fast as you can, frantically hoping to go down the long angled walkway to a center aisle beneath the tracks, cross over to the other side, then lug your bags back up, huffing and puffing, and hope the conductor has seen you and will signal the engineer to wait for you.

            "I just can not believe that in the 21st century," a young man indignantly announced, "that Amtrak inflicts this upon its paying passengers and cannot do better."

            Couldn't have said it better myself.

            Virginia Railway Express does. This little commuter line has an LED light panel providing train information.

            Often, travelers think that surely they can get this basic information calling Amtrak's toll-free number. Been there; tried that. What you get, calling in, is operators who can tell if your train will be late, but their computer screens to not provide the arrival track.

            Or, you might get the Amtrak app for your phone. I have it. Doesn't help.

            Aha, you might say, but they do make an announcement.

            And yes, you would be right, sort of. Sometimes they make an announcement on the track number; sometimes it is not garbled and you can figure out what they have said, and sometimes it is even far enough ahead of arrival that you have time to switch sides…so to speak.

            The Fredericksburg area, a serious tourist town attracting visitors from across the country and around the world (yes, it is true), has had passenger rail service since before the Civil War-a conflict in which, ironically, railroads played a major role.

            I travel through this historic station a couple of dozen times a year. A retired reporter, I naturally strike up conversations with others awaiting trains every time I visit the station and put up with this ridiculous situation.

            What amazes me is that it has gone on so long. And that solving this problem would be so simple and would cost no more than the price of a simple LED light panel.

            Passengers having to play guessing games with train arrivals in the year 2012, (I've always wanted to write this) is just no way to run a railroad.