VRE CEO Advises on Natural Disaster Policies

In a message to Virginia Rail Express riders Wednesday, CEO Dale Zehner reminds passengers how natural disasters can affect the rail service. 

Hurricane Irene: 

At this point, it is too early to tell exactly what will happen. In 2003, with Hurricane Isabel, we were forced to cancel service.  Other storms, like 2010’s Tropical Storm Nicole, caused Flash Flood Restrictions on both lines. Still others have ended up being non-events. Rest assured that we are participating in regional conference calls and keeping track of the storm as it approaches shore and Virginia.  As soon as we have any service related information, we will share it with you.

Flash Flood Restrictions: 

I have heard from many of our Manassas Line riders about their frustration with last Thursday’s flash flood non-event.  I shared that frustration Norfolk Southern.  Here are some things to keep in mind when thinking about flash floods.  These are not typical floods that can easily be predicted.  By nature a flash flood appears suddenly, often with no warning.  Water, particularly fast moving water, can create a tremendous amount of damage to a railroad.  Last Thursday, there were many isolated storms that produced flooded conditions throughout Northern Virginia, just not in the areas along the tracks.  While it is easy to say, just go normal speed, it’s not that simple.

The last thing that anyone wants in any of the above scenarios is to have an incident because the proper precautions were not taken.  Your safety is the most important aspect of our operation.  I will never compromise on the safety of our riders.

Earthquakes:

Yesterday was certainly a challenging day!  It’s been well over 100 years since Virginia has seen anything like this.  As a safety precaution, the railroads ordered our trains to operate at “restricted speeds."  This not only means that trains can’t go faster than 15 mph, but it also means that the engineer must operate in such a way that he/she can stop within one half the range of vision short of any possible track issue.  In some cases, this can mean operating slower than 15 mph.  As you can imagine, after an earthquake, the first concern is whether there is any damage to the tracks, bridges, and other railroad infrastructure.  As the railroad was inspected, our trains were able to resume normal speed.  On the north end of our territory, trains were held in Union Station until a complete inspection of the First Avenue tunnel could occur.

This slow rate of speed coupled with the fact that two of our Manassas Line train sets were in our yard at Broad Run made for a complicated afternoon.  The situation was constantly changing.  While Train Talk messages were sent frequently, the regional communications network became clogged and many of you did not receive the messages in a timely fashion.  The most consistent method we found was Twitter.

FRCs were passed out on all but a few trains.  If you did not receive one, please visit our website at http://vre.org/programs/PDF/frc-request.pdf to fill out a request form.