Virginia Railway Express is extending the length of some of its trains to and adding up to 700 new seats beginning May 2.
In a report from VRE Chief Dale Zehner, the owner of VRE’s Fredericksburg line, CSX, has approved a plan to allow the system to let a train return to the Broad Run storage yard after it makes its final morning stop at Union Station in Washington.
Because the turn-around train can now be stored at Broad Run and not at Union Station as it has been that will allow the commuter railroad to add more cars to other trains and store them at Union Station prior to the afternoon rush hour.
On the Fredericksburg line, morning trains 300, 310 and 312 will see additional cars. So will afternoon trains 313, 311, and 301.
More seats are also coming to Manassas line trains 326 and 329.
The changes come as new ridership numbers for the system show an 11.3 percent increase in passengers in March 2011 over last March.
On March 15, VRE saw record-breaking ridership when they carried more than 20,000 passenger trips in a single day.
