More need for redundancy/"hardening" in the DC area rail transit system: Amtrak's temporary shutdown of service south of DC

The previous entry, "Not sure what to think about WMATA station closures ... and the National Mall," discusses how Metrorail shut down a number of key transfer stations in the Metrorail subway station, crippling its functioning as an everyday transit system. 

As part of anti-insurrection defense of the Inauguration of President Biden, Amtrak shut down through services between DC and Virginia on January 20th and 21st, while Virginia Railway Express (VRE) shut down service 1/18 to 1/20 ("Amtrak, VRE, DC Metro alter operations in advance of inauguration," Trains Magazine).

This suggests that there should be expanded thinking about how to go about maintaining such connections even in the face of other infrastructure shutdowns.

Rail-subway connection redundancy in DC.  The previous entry also mentioned some discussion that came up in the ad hoc advisory committee on the DC State Rail Plan ("New State Rail Planning Initiative in DC," 2015; DC State Rail Plan), where we discussed adding rail connections to subway stations in DC, to provide additional connections to the MARC passenger rail system, if for some reason Union Station is shut down.

Currently, all three MARC lines terminate at Union Station, without additional station stops within DC.  MARC's Brunswick Line has a station stop in Silver Spring, not far from the DC line, while the closest Camden Line stop is in Riverdale Maryland, and for the Penn Line, New Carrollton. VRE by contrast, also has a connection at L'Enfant Plaza.

In those State Rail planning discussions, one example was making a connection at the Fort Totten Station for the MARC Brunswick Line, which would provide a new direction connection to the Green and Yellow Lines, but also a Red Line connection independent of Union Station.  

A Camden/Penn Line station could be added to the New York Avenue corridor, but it would be without a subway connection.

And of course the ongoing discussions to extend MARC to Crystal City and Alexandria, although I argue for merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines into a single, integrated service.

-- "A new backbone for the regional transit system: merging the MARC Penn and VRE Fredericksburg Lines" (2017)

-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland," (2019)

One added benefit would be to provide better connections to Crystal City (now called National Landing) to provide better connections to the new Amazon HQ2, as well as better rail connections to National Airport from both north and south.

-- "Crystal City Arlington as Amazon one-half of HQ2 | Part 3: Leveraging Amazon's entrance for complementary transit network improvements" (2018)

A Southeast Rail Corridor to complement and extend the Northeast Rail Corridor.  The Northeast Rail Corridor is built on the Pennsylvania Railroad connections between DC and New York and the old New Haven Railroad's connections between New York and Boston.

Another element in the DC State Rail Plan discussions then was how you could look at the Northeast Corridor of Amtrak, and Virginia's concept to extend the terminus so to speak, south to Richmond, by upgrading the tracks and Long Bridge.

Virginia is foremost focused on upgrading existing trackage between DC and Virginia, and secondarily extending high capacity trackage from Richmond southeast to Hampton Roads and south to Raleigh, North Carolina.  In turn North Carolina Department of Transportation is focused on extension not just to Raleigh but Charlotte.

These extensions would contribute to the creation of a Southeast high speed rail corridor complementing the Northeast Corridor, conceptualized as an extension of the existing rail assets. 

-- Southeast Corridor Project

-- "FRA issues Southeast HSR DEIS," Railway Age

-- DC 2 Virginia Southeast Rail Corridor

Brightline private passenger railroad program in Florida.  Plus, all the more reason to step up this planning given the expansion of the Brightline rail project in Florida, which will connect Miami to Orlando and Tampa ("Brightline plans to create high-speed passenger rail lines connecting Orlando to Miami — here's how," Orlando Weekly), and could theoretically be extended to Jacksonville ("Virgin Trains expands in Florida. Will it ever reach Jacksonville?," Sarasota Herald-Tribune) where it could connect to the proposed terminus of the proposed Southeast Corridor

DC and Virginia are connected by the Long Bridge.  

There is an ongoing program to renovate the Long Bridge which provides rail connections between Union Station and Virginia.

The Long Bridge is owned by CSX, which because the freight rail capacity of the bridge is adequate to their needs, has no interest in expanding the capacity of the bridge to accommodate passenger rail service.

Therefore, Virginia has taken responsibility for bridge expansion, as part of their rail initiatives under the Atlantic Gateway program.  

They did this because of its importance to the realization of a wide range of state rail rail initiatives.  Last year they also purchased from CSX hundreds of miles of railroad trackage, to be able to expand passenger rail service throughout the state ("Virginia to build Long Bridge and acquire CSX right of way to expand passenger train serviceirginia to build Long Bridge and acquire CSX right of way to expand passenger train service," Washington Post).

Concerning the Long Bridge, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association has advocated for including a bike/pedestrian connection on an expanded Long Bridge.  And I advocated for bus transit lanes, to provide redundancy in case the 14th Street Bridge is closed or incapacitated ("Tilikum Crossing Bridge as a model for the DC-Virginia Long Bridge Expansion Project," 2018).

The recent bridge closures in advance of the Inauguration demonstrates this is worth considering, as well as shifting from a bridge to a tunnel connection between DC and Virginia for regional and multi-state rail passenger services.