Passenger Rail Coming to New River Valley

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Actually Harry, no I  don't.
OK, Jimmy.  The cost of Right-of-Way improvements yield almostzero when it comes to return-on-investment.  Consequently, railroadswere hesitant to extend sidings, add another track, or expandtunnels.  Then the railroads came up with a solution -- makeAmtrak pay for the improvements.
It hasn't been seen by the public in the Roanoke area, but VDOThas a project to buy 55 miles of the abandoned SAL route fromSecoast to the NC/VA state line and an additional 10 miles ofex-SAL track in North Carolina.  This because VDOT wants toextend the North East Corridor traffic to Raleigh. In early CSXyears, the railroad abandoned their line from Raleigh to Secoast(that's Petersburg, by the way). Am trak's Silver Star continuedto stop in Raleigh and used the North Carolina Railroad betweenSelma and Raleigh (instead of thru Henderson).  North CarolinaRailroad provided switching service to Henderson.  So CSX mademoney when they took the line up and they'll save about 19 mileson traffic to Georgia and Alabama when the taxpayers put theline back in service. They had diverted traffic from Hamlet to theformer ACL at Pembroke.
And the politicians seem to be pushing for expanding Amtrakservice too.  The Town of Bedford made a survey of prospectivepassengers that would use Amtrak if Bedford was made a stop.The results were published as an annual figure, but if you calculatethe daily travelers, it turns out to be an average of 88 passengersa day boarding or exiting the Amtrak train.
Make Bedford a Amtrak stop, add a 2nd Amtrak train, and NS willdemand that the 2nd main track from M. P. N-239 to Lynchburgbe restored.                                                                      Harry Bundy 
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