Rail News

VRE, like MARC, has now sold out all its tickets for the reserved seat trains to Washington for Inauguration Day.

Staff writer Jennifer Buske reports that VRE said that 8,750 tickets went to people going to watch the inauguration, 100 to people who are commuting to work for the day and 200 to 300 to uniformed officers who will be deployed in Washington.

Inauguration Day trains will not make stops at Franconia-Springfield, Alexandria or Crystal City, but will stop at both L'Enfant Plaza and Union Station.

Many who reserved a seat on a Washington-bound Amtrak train leaving the Staples Mill Road station on Inauguration Day still haven't picked up their tickets.

And waiting until Tuesday could mean long lines -- and possibly missing the train.

Before the historic day, travelers should go to the station to pick up a printed ticket from the ticket window or machine, said Chuck McIntyre, acting station manager for Amtrak's Richmond-area district. The station is open 24 hours a day.

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The Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) has canceled its scheduled Jan. 15 meeting. A VDOT official says the CTB will instead convene at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 5, for a combined workshop and action meeting.

The CTB will also host a public hearing to discuss the revised draft for the fiscal year 2009-2014 Six-Year Improvement Program. The public hearing starts at at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 5.

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Those who plan to head into the District from Virginia on Inauguration Day are running out of options as the few remaining train tickets are going fast.

People crowded into the Virginia Railway Express offices in Alexandria on Monday, VRE spokesman Mark Roeber said, as many as 25 people at a time. Buyers had gotten word they had received scarce inauguration tickets but realized they needed a way into the city.

Driving isn’t an option as the bridges leading from Virginia toward the capital will be closed to personal cars Jan. 20. Amtrak has already sold out its tickets from the commonwealth to the capital. Walking or biking wouldn’t work for many who live too far away.

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Talk of the economy dominated candidate for Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe's meet-and-greet appearance at Vintage 50 in Leesburg Saturday afternoon.

During his speech and the following question-and-answer section, the former Democratic National Committee chairman stressed the importance of creating incentives for companies to invest in green energy projects within the state, such as biodiesel production centers and wind farms.

"The biggest problem is we don't have a stream-lined process here in Virginia to go out and recruit big businesses" to invest in the state, McAuliffe said.

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ALTHOUGH it doesn't directly affect the Rappahannock region, federal approval of rail transportation to Washington Dulles International Airport is worthy of applause. On Wednesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters gave the $5.2 billion project her blessing, clearing the way for construction of the Silver Line.

When Dulles was built in 1962 it was considered a bit of a boondoggle. Located 25 miles outside of Washington in the Virginia countryside, the airport's elegant design seemed oddly out of place amid the cow fields. Now growth has encompassed the facility, and its location seems prescient.

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There was little on Ray LaHood’s schedule on Dec. 16 to indicate he might be the next U.S. transportation secretary. The soon-to-be-ex-congressman and former social studies teacher spent the morning with seventh-grade students at Dunlap Valley Middle School near Peoria, Ill. Local reporters quizzed him on whether he would seek President-elect Obama’s Senate seat, or run to replace scandal-ridden Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Instead, he was headed for Obama’s cabinet.

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Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe says he will push for more renewable energy sources and partnerships with the private sector to bring high-speed rail here.

But his main goal, he said, is to create more jobs.

With blue-and-white post-ers proclaiming "New Energy for New Jobs," McAuliffe touted these ideas and his business acumen to about 25 people who gathered for a town-hall-style meeting yesterday at Caroline Street Cafe in Fredericksburg.

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Jan. 20 is Inauguration Day in Washington, and that commuting patterns have been altered drastically to "help things run smoother."

Most federal employees have been given the day off, but many government contractors and most of private industry will be open for business.

If you plan to drive into the District or anywhere near Northern Virginia on that day, forget about it.

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An environmental advocacy group has listed the Interstate 81 corridor as one of the top "endangered regions" in the Southeast.

Earlier this week, the Southern Environmental Law Center released this year's top 10 list of places it considers "facing immediate, potentially irreversible threats" where "ecological, scenic, and cultural riches ... are at stake."

The center's lists include places from the Southern Appalachians to the South Atlantic.

The I-81 corridor and its scenic highways, Civil War battlefields, forests, and "miles of picturesque rural countryside," are threatened by increasing truck traffic and a possible expansion of the road they drive, the center said.