Biography

I grew up in Pine Ridge, about one mile from the Fairfax Hospital, in Fairfax County, Virginia. In about 1952, I remember traveling on the Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Railroad (the "Virginia Creeper") from Falls Church to Roslyn. This train ran from Bluemont to Roslyn and Alexandria, VA, with a branch to Great Falls, which ceased operations earlier. I graduated from Fairfax High School (1963), the College of William and Mary, BS, Biology (1968) and the University of Connecticut, MS, Zoology (1974).
I spent a year (1966-1967) working for the Smithsonian Institution in Venezuela collecting mammals and parasites. I was in the US Army (1969-1971) and spent a year in Japan, outside Toyko. That was first experience with a well run train system and with a ride on their Bullet Train, which traveled at 130 mph at the time. I have worked for the Office of Pesticide Programs at the Environmental Protection Agency for 36 years (1973 to 2009). During that period, I have ridden the Virginia Railway Express (VRE), a Washington/Virginia commuter rail system since its beginning in 1992. Now I am paying more interest in Amtrak and want to stimulate ridership and new service, especially in Virginia. I am a member of the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons (VARP), www.varprail.org, which has been promoting passenger rail in the state for 30 years and a member of Cvillerail, www.Cvillerail.org, which was major reason for the establishment of the new Amtrak Train to Lynchburg, the subject of this blog.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Status of Flyers at Stations: DC to Lynchburg

Since the start of the new Amtrak Service to Lynchburg on October 1, 2009, my brother, Richard, and I, have worked tirelessly to insure that the colorful Flyer promoting the new train is displayed at all stations. Many stations were either not receiving an adequate supply of flyers or were not displaying them.

Now I can report that all Stations between DC and Lynchburg currently display the flyers:
Union Station, Alexandria, Manassas, Culpeper, Charlottesville, and Lynchburg.

Until recently, Amtrak was slow to send flyers when requested. At Manassas and Culpeper, they waited weeks. To bridge the gap, Richard and I begged flyers from another station and provided them in person (Manassas) or by mail (Culpeper).

Today, I interviewed the Station Manager at Union Station. He recognized that this new service is very popular. The Local Lynchburg paper is reporting that the ridership for the 1st month of operation (October 2009) was double the projected number. The Station Manager promised:
  1. to ask station under his control to stock the flyer at all times,
  2. to request that Amtrak post a downloadable version of the Flyer on its website,
  3. to request the posting of monthly ridership figures on its website and/or that of DRPT, and
  4. to investigate the possibility of sending the flyers to Visitor Centers in the train corridor, especially Lexington and Staunton.
The Station Manager seems to be committed to making the new service more widely known. As I pointed out to , this train is the first new one in the Corridor in at least 30 years and the first one in 170 years to run directly to Boston. People are literally discovering, for the first time, the available of inexpensive, reliable, and safe trains, with more stops (like BWI Airport) than the Cardinal and The Crescent. It's a heady time for rail advocates!
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