For all those who want to see Amtrak extended to Bristol, pay attention to what’s happening in the New River Valley, where efforts to locate a passenger rail station have hit what one key legislator calls “a setback” that has raised alarms about how likely it will be for trains to go further west.
Here’s what the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority was told at last week’s meeting :
Norfolk Southern, which owns the tracks, wants Amtrak’s New River Valley extension to avoid its busy mainline route and instead go from Roanoke to Christiansburg on its lesser-used Virginian line that goes through the Ellett Valley. That would seem a reasonable request except for what that sets in motion down the line. Instead of coming into Christiansburg from the east, the train would be coming in from the west.
The plan had been for the New River passenger rail station to be near the New River Valley Mall. To get the that site from Norfolk Southern’s mainline is fairly straightforward. However, to get to that site from the Virginian line involves a big complication — it would need to go through the Merrimac Tunnel.