Virginia Railway Express adds new round trip option, safety measures

The Virginia Railway Express (VRE) has added a new round trip option to its Fredericksburg Line to support social distancing effective Monday, July 27.

“We are closely monitoring ridership on both the Fredericksburg and Manassas lines and will adjust service as the number of passengers grows,” said Rich Dalton, VRE’s acting CEO. “We have seen enough of an increase on our Fredericksburg Line to warrant an additional round trip. These two new trains, along with other measures, will allow us to continue to protect the health and safety of our passengers and train crews.”

Karen Finucan Clarkson from the Office of Public Affairs explained in a press release that train 300, which departs Spotsylvania at 4:54 a.m., will take commuters northbound while train 307, which departs Union Station at 4:10 p.m., will carry them southbound. These two trains will supplement VRE’s reduced-service “S” schedule consisting of eight daily trains on each of two lines, which the commuter railway applied on March 17 in response to the pandemic.

The new morning train will help reduce the number of riders on what currently is VRE’s first northbound train of the morning, where the number of available seats is approaching 50 percent, according to Clarkson. The afternoon train will serve as an alternative for riders of two trains, where the number of available seats is about 40 percent.

VRE also installed decals on its platforms and in rail cars to support social distancing back in June. Onboard graphics now indicate where passengers should sit or stand, guiding them to window seats in every other row to ensure proper distancing, according to Clarkson.

The effect of the decals has reduced the number of available seats, on average, from 130 to 45 per rail car. VRE’s train utilization trends web page has been updated to reflect total seats, maximum capacity to support social distancing, and current daily ridership.

VRE also is exploring ways to notify passengers when trains are at or near capacity, according to the press release.

Clarkson stated that VRE has started a new train-cleaning process and has installed hand-sanitizer dispensers on trains and platforms to complement VRE’s social-distancing measures. VRE’s mobile app allows riders to purchase and validate tickets on their smartphones, thereby avoiding contact with ticket vending machines on platforms.

The pandemic has drastically lowered the number of passengers on VRE trains. On During the week of March 20, 2020, 15,500 riders were reported to have taken the train compared to the 95,000 on March 20, 2019 the same week the previous year, a decrease of 83 percent.

As recent as July 17, 2020, 5,500 riders were reported, compared to the 97,600 riders on July 17, 2019, according to numbers from VRE’s coronavirus ridership chart.

VRE is the thirteenth largest commuter rail service in the United States, and its mission is to provide safe, cost-effective, accessible, reliable, convenient, and customer-responsive commuter-oriented passenger rail service. The 4.5 million rides the railroad provides annually in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. helps removes 100 million vehicle miles from the region’s interstates, according to Clarkson.

Learn more at vre.org.