Construction in Crystal City. Click to enlarge.

Transit types around the region have long lusted after a more substantial regional rail network. Why can’t MARC and VRE run trains 7 days a week and at all hours of the day, rather than just at rush hour? Why can’t they be more like New York’s LIRR or Chicago’s Metra, for example?

Actually there are a bunch of reasons why that’ll be hard, but none are bigger than the simple fact that we don’t have enough track capacity to run both freight trains and more passenger trains. MARC and VRE run almost exclusively on track owned by the freight companies, which have their own problems. The only exception is MARC’s Penn Line, which runs on track owned by Amtrak and doesn’t have to compete with freight. It’s no coincidence then that MARC’s Penn Line is by far the most substantial regional line in the region.

So if trains are going to be added, if VRE is to extend to Richmond and if MARC is going to cross the river to Crystal City, we need more track capacity. We particularly need more capacity between Alexandria and L’Enfant, where all rail coming or going through DC is funneled onto a single double track segment, owned by CSX Railroad.

There’s good news.

A couple of weeks ago BeyondDC attended the Virginia Transit Association’s annual conference, held in Crystal City. Richard Layman of Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space was there too and wrote about the conference extensively (see posts on May 20 and 21). In between sessions BeyondDC bummed around Crystal City, taking photos for our transit library. We wandered up to the VRE station and found, much to our surprise, construction!

We went back to the conference and asked around a bit, then did some digging online, and it turns out CSX is building a third track along that very segment between Alexandria and L’Enfant. The third track will be used exclusively by freight, but its presence means the original two tracks can be used more by passenger rail. The only remaining two-track portion will be the bridge over the Potomac. Capacity is going to go up by 50% on the single most serious bottleneck in Washington’s entire rail network.

Naturally there’s more to be done before VRE can run like the Penn Line or extend to Richmond, but nonetheless this is a major step forward.