Passenger Rail Coming to New River Valley

[NW Mailing List]

On Wed, May 5, 2021 at 3:55 PM Ken wrote:

> Cliff
>
> I’m not sure what to think here, I don’t know if NS will retain trackage
> rights over the portion from Salem to Merrimac or not, I would assume so.
>
> The comment about Christiansburg purchasing property for a station is also
> puzzling, as the two lines to not connect until Salem.
>

Picking up the Virginian to Merrimac is a new wrinkle that hasn't been
mentioned before. Maybe it is a long-term plan to revive the Huckleberry to
provide direct service to Blacksburg. Or perhaps the thought is to use it
for some type of "light rail" operation, a modern interurban between
Merrimac and Roanoke with high frequency (think Smartway Bus on rails).
Maybe it is just a move by the state to protect that line from NS
abandoning it.

The Christiansburg purchases have been going on for a little while now,
ever since it looked like the extension was getting closer to reality.
There was a study and the location off N. Franklin St. was deemed the best
(apparently NS didn't want any use of the current Christiansburg station
site for this). The station location will be between the Franklin St.
overpass and the eastbound signals at Pelton. It will be interesting to see
where the maintenance facility will be located; one would think
Christiansburg Yard would be the best location.

What has been puzzling in all this is why Radford wasn't picked as the
termination point for this extension. There would be a number of choices
for a station, there would be space in the yard there for the maintenance
track, and it would be easy to turn the train on the wye at Walton. So far,
there have been no details about how that will work with C'burg as the end
of the line.

Either way, the plans must be for some grand station if it is going to take
4 years to build it.

Bruce in Blacksburg
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