Amtrak announced its intensive nine-day infrastructure upgrade program is finished, just in time for the holiday travel season.
The program, called “Pause for Progress” made improvements to the First Street Tunnel just south of Washington Union Station, officials said.
“This concentrated construction period allowed our teams to make significant improvements to critical infrastructure while limiting the amount of time it was out of service,” Amtrak Executive Vice President, Strategy and Planning Jennifer Mitchell said. “We’re grateful to Virginia Railway Express (VRE), Virginia Passenger Rail Authority (VPRA), and North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) for working closely with us to coordinate service during the outage, and to our customers for their patience and flexibility as we completed this important work to improve reliability for years to come.”
The project, which required temporary service changes for trains traveling south of Washington from Oct. 12-26, replaced aging infrastructure at A-Interlocking, a critical track and control point for Amtrak and VRE trains traveling between Washington and Virginia. Upgrades included replacing switches and crossovers, rehabilitating the tunnel track base, and installing modern electric switch systems.
During the project, crews replaced seven key track components, rehabilitated 350 feet of track/tunnel base, installed 550 tons of ballast, replaced 1,000 feet of rail and 215 ties, and installed 2,500 feet of signal and electrical cable.
Service has since been restored and customers can start planning for holiday travel, the company said. Amtrak Virginia has service to 17 stations in Virginia and Washington, D.C. Additionally, VRPA is extending some of the Amtrak Connection Express Bus service, to give even more options to travelers on top of the six daily roundtrip trains between Washington and Richmond, Roanoke, Norfolk, Newport News and points in between.
“As Pause for Progress comes to a close, we would like to thank our Amtrak Virginia passengers for their patience as A-interlocking, a major infrastructure necessity for Virginia as well as the East Coast, was replaced,” DJ Stadtler, Executive Director of VPRA, said. “The coordination between impacted partners has ensured future passenger rail service to and from Virginia is reliable, secure, and safe.”