
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 6, 1994                   TAG: 9409080010
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TRYING TO CATCH THE TRAIN

LIKE THE little engine that thought it could, the Roanoke Valley has been optimistically huffing and puffing its hopes that passenger-train service might return to this region that was left stranded, along with much of Southwest Virginia, when Amtrak pulled out in 1979.

Roanoke Mayor David Bowers' efforts notwithstanding, a proposed new Amtrak route from New York to Atlanta - with stops in Washington, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Roanoke and Bristol - never seemed a likely scenario for getting us back on the Pullman. Amtrak considered the idea, but ditched it because of budget cutbacks and estimates of the huge government subsidies it would require.

About a year ago, though, state Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol - anticipating Amtrak's no - suggested to Bowers that Roanoke and Southwest Virginia go for the destination on a parallel track: private passenger trains, operating under contractual agreement with the state.

With persistence, and to their considerable credit, Wampler, Bowers and allies from Bristol to Richmond and beyond have pressed for, and won, a state feasibility study of the concept. It is now under way.

Getting their little engine over the mountain remains, of course, another matter. Demonstrating feasibility is likely to prove a tough haul.

After all, the state won't - and shouldn't - restore passenger-train service for sentimental reasons. That Roanoke, the Virginia city most identified with railroads, feels part of its heritage has been taken away is of no great import for taxpayers in other parts of the commonwealth.

Neither are they, or their representatives in the General Assembly, likely to be persuaded to help out Wampler and other lawmakers from the Far Southwest corner, who must make frequent, inconvenient and costly ($525 round-trip airfare to Richmond) trips in the line of legislative duty.

The state doesn't give a good toot that Roanokers and other Southwest Virginians say they want passenger-train service. The study - conducted under the auspices of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation - will have to show that people will actually ride the trains, and will do so in sufficient numbers and on a regular enough basis to make daily trips to Bristol, Richmond and Washington, D.C., profitable, or at least financially feasible.

The study will have to show that the passenger trains can be operated on Norfolk Southern's tracks without significantly disrupting its freight-hauling operations.

And it will have to convince the state that any investment in such an endeavor would pay adequate dividends in economic development and increased tourism in Western Virginia, which generally has lagged behind the rest of the commonwealth.

We think this train idea can make it over mountains of cost-benefit analyses, carrying a load of goodies for the nice people in this valley and across the state. Or we hope it can, anyway. We are satisfied, at the least, that the effort is being made.

by CNB