Operations
Rail service operates Monday through Friday only and is suspended or reduced on select holidays.
Through a cross-honoring agreement, VRE and the MARC Train allow passengers to transfer to a train on the other system provided that it is going in the opposite direction of the rush-hour commuters.
VRE operates on lines owned and maintained by Amtrak, Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation. Most of the Fredericksburg Line is on CSX tracks, while the portion of the Manassas Line west of Alexandria is mostly on Norfolk Southern tracks. Union Station in Washington, DC, which is the northern terminus for most VRE trains, is owned and operated by Amtrak, including the station tracks.
On November 5, 2009, VRE voted to award the operating contract to Keolis, a French based company, replacing Amtrak, which had previously operated the trains since the start of service in 1992. The change in operations took place on July 12, 2010, after a two week extension in preparation time was granted to Keolis, as its employees were still undergoing processes to become qualified to run trains on the VRE.
Ridership on VRE increased an average of 13% each year from 2000 to 2005, but, in the fiscal year to June 30, 2005, ridership fell 2% compared to the prior year. VRE said the decrease was because passengers affected by delays due to track maintenance and heat restrictions were taking other forms of transportation. The trend reversed the summer of 2007, with ridership up nearly 2% in June and 4% in July compared with the corresponding months in 2006. As of July 2010, VRE transports an average of 17,600 passengers per day.
Read more about this topic: Virginia Railway Express
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You can’t have operations without screams. Pain and the knife—they’re inseparable.”
—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)