Our Vision for the Future of Rail
| RAIL Solution is a grassroots advocacy group with over 1200 individual participants and a coalition of allied organizations. We emphasize balanced transportation planning, with a leading role for railroads. The time has passed when every problem of congestion and growth can be solved with more lanes of highway. Proper, balanced transportation decisions are vital to preserving the natural environment, ensuring our quality of life, and providing sustainable economic opportunity for Virginia and the nation. | ||
We promote railroads as a safe, clean, efficient carrier of freight and people, and this long-term vision — employ faster, upgraded rail service in concert with targeted highway improvements. This combination ensures the well-being of the citizens and businesses of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and Southwest Virginia. Our transportation plan promotes public health and safety while preserving the financial, environmental, and cultural integrity of our homes, farms, businesses, and communities. |
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| 2009 Opportunities | ||
| The current national review of economic stimulus infrastructure projects, the upcoming federal transportation act re-authorization, and the new Administration in Washington, create an unparalleled opportunity to influence national transportation policy away from near total dependence on highways. RAIL Solution has written a position paper on the importance of making infrastructure investments carefully and wisely, not just accelerating spending on traditional pork barrel projects. Please help us promote the many advantages of the steel interstate to the future of America. Print and distribute our paper... | ||
| The National Plan | ||
| In addition to our work in Virginia, RAIL Solution is devoting more and more attention to promoting a national transportation paradigm for the 21st Century known as the "steel interstate". The steel interstate would be a core national network of high-capacity, grade-separated rail lines for movement of goods and people in the U.S. and is analogous in scope and vision to the highway improvements made over the past 50 years under the Eisenhower Interstate System. Furthermore, the steel interstate can readily be electrified, allowing the nation to wean itself from dependence on imported oil by substituting domestically generated electrical energy. With proper planning over ensuing decades, we can have a core national steel interstate system in place before oil becomes prohibitively expensive or runs out. Featuring a network of high-capacity, electrified rail lines, it would be the backbone for movement of both goods and passengers in this country. Read More... | ||
| The Virginia Plan | ||
| Railways would be improved to accommodate growing freight traffic, primarily by building dual tracks and eliminating road crossings and other bottlenecks. Higher capacity rail lines would move freight containers, trailers, or whole tractor-trailer rigs, and potentially passenger trains, quickly through the I-81 corridor between Knoxville, TN and Harrisburg, PA. | ||
The RAIL Solution plan also calls for targeted improvements to the dozen or so places on I-81 where accident rates are high. This would significantly improve the highway’s safety record. Climbing lanes on steep hills and extra passing lanes would be added in chronically congested areas. Selected dangerous interchanges would be redesigned and more funds and attention would be directed to traffic management and enforcement. The improved railway could easily exceed the carrying capacity of the proposed highway construction and truly separate freight traffic from cars, with much room for growth at less than half the estimated highway expansion cost, while avoiding most of the 15 years of construction danger and traffic disruption. Read More... |  |