Amtrak routes in Virginia hit record-high ridership

August ridership increased from July’s record by 8.2 percent

(Molly Riley, Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Amtrak hit a record-high ridership of 119,280 passengers traveling on four Virginia state-supported routes in the month of August.

This comes after the previous record of 110,256 passengers in July — an 8.2 percent increase.

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Amtrak saw the greatest increase in the Tidewater Region, with a total of 33,055 passengers, a 12.9 percent increase from July.

The number of Roanoke passengers increased after the launch of a roundtrip in July. The Star City had 28,655 passengers in August, an increase of 4.7 percent since the previous month.

The route, with stops in Alexandria, Burke Centre, Manassas, Culpeper, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Roanoke grew 43.8 percent in ridership from 2019.

“The demand to travel on Amtrak’s state-supported Virginia service is strong and growing,” said Ray Lang, Vice President of State Supported Services at Amtrak. “We thank customers for choosing an energy-efficient way to travel in the U.S.”

State-supported passenger service in Virginia began in 2009 with one roundtrip from Washington, D.C. and Lynchburg. State service has grown to eight daily roundtrips and 17 stations across four corridors.


About the Author

Lauren Helkowski joined WSLS 10’s digital team in August 2022, but has held a passion for storytelling long before.

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