Emergency stop-skipping policy leaves VRE’s new riders fuming

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The Virginia Railway Express recently has resorted to purposely skipping stops to deal with delays as more commuters turn to trains to get to work.

The last time VRE skipped stops was the morning of June 6, when a freight train broke down, creating a backup on VRE’s Fredericksburg line.

So just before 7 a.m., VRE passengers at the Leeland Road and Brooke stations waited for their already-delayed trains — only to see them zoom by without explanation.

To get the commuter trains back on schedule, the 302 train from Fredericksburg — already 30 minutes behind schedule — skipped the two stops, VRE operations board members said. That allowed the following train to proceed slightly behind schedule and pick up the passengers without further major delays.

VRE spokesman Mark Roeber said trains rarely skip stops, but doing so returns the trains to their normal schedules relatively quickly.

“Without doing that, believe me, the whole morning turns into a disaster,” VRE Chief Executive Dale Zehner said. “We don’t want to do it.”

A significant increase in ridership during May and April made the June 6 incident all the more frustrating, VRE board members said Friday.

VRE received many complaints from riders, Roeber said.

“Most of those were from new riders who didn’t know the protocol,” he said. “We don’t have to do it very often, but it is standard operating procedure to make sure trains get back on schedule.”

“A lot of new riders — of which we have a lot — simply don’t understand it,” Zehner said. “If you’ve been waiting 30 minutes at a platform and see a train run by you, you get very upset.”

Sharon Bulova, D-Fairfax County, said she understood the plan in principle, but acknowledged that it offered little comfort to the stranded passengers.

“It sounds like it makes sense from an operational point of view, but from a PR point of view, it sounds disastrous,” she said.

Roeber said riders at the stations were eventually informed what was happening, and VRE sent out a train notice via e-mail to alert potential commuters of that morning.

About 3,700 passengers rode daily on the morning Fredericksburg line during May, according to the chief executive’s June report. There were about 8,000 total daily riders on the Fredericksburg line, and 6,800 daily riders on the Manassas line.

VRE had an 80.9 percent on-time performance in May, up from 80.3 percent in April, but down from 87.7 in March.

Metro has a similar system of skipping stations when trains fall behind schedule. In a memo dated Feb. 22, Blue-Orange line director Charles Dziduch asked operators to “express through stations on occasion for schedule purposes.”

Staff Writer Dan Genz contributed to this article.

dsherfinski@dcexaminer.com

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