Board of Directors Meeting   1/22/2026

Welcome to everyone.

All right, Madam Chair, Executive Director, members of the board, good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Lamar Bates, Executive Director for VPRA.

That's for the United States briefing.

Our address is 919 East Main Street on the fourth floor.

Exit left around the corner on your left is the women's restroom.

If you exit to your right around the corner on the right is the men's restroom.

There's a

Stalwell, and a fire alarm near each press room.

There's a fire extinguisher across from the women's press room.

If you go down the hall from the women's press room, there's a fire extinguisher on the right near the tight wood floor.

For safety assignments, when I call your name, please raise your hand.

Calling 911, Mary Estelle Douglas, backup Michael Westerman, CPR, myself, Amara Bates, backup Jennifer Binus,

and many first responders, Michael Clark.

Back up, DJ Styler.

There's an AED at the security desk.

There's a first aid kit on the table against the wall.

If we must evacuate, ensure the person to your left is present at our assembly point at North 9th and Capitol Square.

If you see something, say something.

Call security or 911.

If there's an active shooter, we hide or fight.

Those participating virtually

You have phishing emails and scans.

And know your medical emergency and evacuation strategies.

Do we have any questions?

I don't have a question.

I just have one item to add.

If stairwells are for evacuation only, if you went to the stairwell if you go to another floor, you won't be able to go to that floor.

You can only exit the ground level.

That's correct.

Thank you for that.

Any additional questions?

All right.

Well, I want to welcome everyone and thank you for the warm welcome that many of you gave me as well.

I'm Mariia Zimmerman.

I am the new Director for Rail and Public Transportation for the Commonwealth of Virginia and it is wonderful to be with you here today and to be back with the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority Board that I was very privileged and happy to be a member of.

just as the VPRA was kind of getting up and running the first couple of years.

So on behalf of Governor Spanberger and Secretary Donovan and myself, I just want to affirm this administration's commitment to continued investment in the state's passenger rail network to make it safer, to make it more efficient, and more connected to all parts of our state to provide affordable, reliable, and convenient rail service across the Commonwealth.

I've worked on transportation issues for almost 30 years and throughout that time transit and rail have always been my passionate areas of focus and so it's really a thrill to be the chair of your board and to be the director of DRPT.

I see some familiar faces around the table, others it's nice to meet you and I hope and look forward to opportunities to really work together closely here over the coming years.

and I also, you know, since I've left VPR board in 2022, there has been a lot happening through your efforts through the terrific leadership of DJ Statler and the entire team at VPR.

It's been great to see all the work that's been underway.

While I was at most recently, the US Department of Transportation, we really, you know, it was exciting to be able to support all the work happening in Virginia.

I think,

Not last but least but the Long Bridge project is a hugely important project to the entire nation of what we have underway there and really a critical project here for the state and for VPRA so I'm excited to see that construction is now underway but I also know as a frequent rider I took Amtrak every week for about three years

The impacts to current riders, I think it's important, everything that we can do to communicate that to people, to help folks, and I know it's very much on VPRA's work to make that a seamless transition for people and to get that project on time and on budget.

So I'm confident with our ability to be able to continue partnering with the US Department of Transportation, with Maryland, with the District of Columbia, with Alexandria, and with Arlington over the next few years as that project continues to move forward.

and kind of last but not least, I mean, it's just exciting.

I hope everyone knows Virginia is really a national rail leader, both in the state's commitment to rail investment, to provide a convenient, safe and affordable mobility, also in the successful partnerships.

I think we have some real models for the nation of how we've been partnering with our private rail carriers, with Amtrak, with communities and the deep cross collaboration that's happening.

with the public and with other important stakeholders through this work.

And I think we see that in our record-breaking ridership that we've had over the last few years and our consistently strong safety records.

So excited to see that all continue.

And I'm excited to welcome two additional new members to VPRA.

We have Katie Choe, the new CEO of the Virginia Railway Express,

with 25 years of program management and safety oversight leadership in the transportation sector.

So Katie, I don't know if you want to say a quick hello to folks.

Hi, I'm thrilled to be here and look forward to working with everyone.

I started at Berry on Tuesday, so come with me.

And we also have Benny Zhang who is with us.

He's an attorney at Kauffman and

Canoles, sorry.

I know your legal practice.

spans corporate security zoning and the state banning laws.

Thank you.

Appreciate it, Madam Chair.

My name is Benny Zhang.

I'm just thrilled to be here, to be appointed by the prior governor and to continue into this administration.

And I served one time, life ago, a term on the city council.

I was the second student that got elected on that body.

But with that, I served as the vice president for the Virginia Transit Association.

So I know some of the familiar faces around.

I'm glad to just jump back into the transit world.

Ms. Bushue?

Here.

Ms. Choe?

Here.

Mr. Cohen?

Here.

Ms. Doersch?

Mr.

Flowers?

Here.

Mr. Jordan?

Ms. Lawrence?

Here.

Ms. Mitchell?

Here.

Mr. Payne?

Ms. Rhinehart?

Here.

Ms. Spears?

Mr. Watkins?

Here.

Thank you.

Next we have public comment and we did receive a written public comment.

A copy has been shared of all the board members and so we received this comment concerning construction around the Charlottesville Amtrak station.

That comment has been distributed to the board.

Each of you have copies in front of you.

We do not have any sign up for public comment here in person.

So moved.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Aye.

Thank you.

Those opposed?

And the ayes carry it.

Wonderful, thank you and welcome.

Good to see everybody in this first four meetings of the year.

The big topic that we'll be talking a lot about today and we're going to talk about it is Long Bridge.

One of the things that you've heard about at the last five meetings is the importance of getting the construction team the time to work on Long Bridge.

To do that, we put work windows in place

We made service adjustments.

Those started last Monday, and Jeremy will talk more about them this afternoon.

But I think they went as well as we could have expected.

Our PR team did a great job of getting the word out.

We had a lot of folks at the stations.

We had a lot of folks on trains.

We heard a lot of, oh, you know, I don't know the fact that my schedule had to change.

But what we did hear was this was a surprise to us.

What we also didn't hear

was, I don't understand why we have to do this.

The resounding, I get it.

We need a new bridge.

This is going to help us in the long run.

I think people understand why we're doing it.

So the first week, not found good, I think went well.

The team's done a good job of lessons learned.

Tuesday was much better than Monday.

Wednesday was much better than Tuesday.

Today, at least as of the morning reports, is much better than last week.

So we continue to work well together.

VRE is going to bring a partner.

We have various staff on the platforms as well.

So, so far so good.

You can go to our website if you've got the keyword includes there.

There's a lot of information out there on these service changes, but so far so good, and we'll continue to update you.

We also have in place a construction hub for the construction map, so if you can find out, we talked about this a couple of meetings ago when we got the practice question up in Manhattan, we started that before.

As we're making changes to people's flow, we've got

Community advocacy groups where we're going out and giving that, here's what you can see in February, here's what you can see in March.

So the communication continues to be strong and we'll continue to get positive feedback on that.

I encourage anyone, if they've got questions or comments from the public, reach out.

Yeah, DJ, to that end, I received a lot of texts, emails, and a couple of people even dropped the flyer that you guys put out in Pentagon City and Crystal City to me.

It's been very welcomed.

And it was really nice because you had a map,

You said what was going on.

It was really good.

So thank you.

You really are.

It is your money well spent.

Because again, like I said, I think I received at least 10.

And a couple of people even dropped it in the mail to me because they asked me if I got it and I said no.

They sent it to me in the mail, which is great.

Send it to board members.

But that was really, it was so smart, well done, and they really did appreciate it, to know what's going on.

Yeah, we have the live construction cameras that we watch, and it's good to see over the last week the cranes move and see changes.

We've got some pictures of the construction update as well, so thank you for the show.

Just an update on our organizational goals, I'll go through these a little more slowly than normal, just because we've got a couple new folks.

We always put our goals, today we put our goals in different categories.

Ridership is really that spot here.

We're doing capital projects better than anyone in the district capital projects if no one's riding the train or not doing our job.

So ridership and revenue are always what we're looking for.

Long Bridge is the best part right now.

Our biggest projects we have to use for those milestones.

The third category is the other major projects and then of course the fourth one is as we continue to grow as an organization.

Sometimes we kind of pinch ourselves and say, well, we've only been at this for not even five years.

Those goals represent us continuing to become a mature and efficient organization.

Ridership and revenue, we are in good shape.

Halfway through the year, we're more than halfway on both of those.

I don't want those to get extended into complacency.

This service change has been started last week.

We likely will see some downturn, and I think we're expecting that.

But so far, so good as we talk about getting the word out, being flexible on scale, this is a big part of that.

Long Bridge, DRPT, everything's going well.

As Ms. Bushue talked about, construction is improving and moving to a good pace.

both for the North Package and for the South Package.

Team Alston for other projects.

As of right now, we are on track for those four.

We do have some utility issues on the bypass.

We're moving the utilities.

It's taking longer than we expected.

So we're looking for mitigating, ways to mitigate that delay.

But as of now, we're on track.

I would say that's the one.

The North and South Shoe Plus Subbase obviously is the one that's at the biggest risk.

Working with the utility company that's actually

It's a utility that moves the jet fuel to the airport.

So we're very careful about how we're handling that.

But hopefully we'll be able to get them to work in a manner that helps us continue to move that forward.

And then finally the organizational goals.

We talk about this a lot internally.

We probably don't talk about it enough in this meeting.

But as we purchase right-of-way, the responsibility for maintenance comes to us eventually, and we need to make sure we're prepared for that responsibility.

CSAs who are with Southern have been really good partners with us sharing the current asset information, but as we are going to develop standards, and we talked a little bit earlier about the snow that's coming and how important it is for the railroads to clear the trees and make sure that

That should be closer and closer to 2030.

Any questions on goals?

And those are all on track at this point.

Any questions on goals?

Anything from the ELT that I should have said that I didn't, or I shouldn't have said that I didn't?

Let's go.

Okay.

Updates on General Assemblies.

I think everybody knows we are at the beginning of General Assembly.

It started on the 14th.

It's a long session, so the last few days.

We've got the Army Governor.

We've repeatedly been incredibly supportive of the work we're doing, so that's been

We've raised two minor bills that are going through that affect us.

You see the numbers up there.

They're basically, so we talked about this, our enabling legislation had some discrepancies or lacks some clarity and is giving us some authorities that were intended to be like VDOT, intended to be like the Spaceport and Port Authority.

These are just minor bills that clean up that.

Easier for folks to understand and follow.

Actually, if they're passed, they make our job easier

A lot of them so far have been a problem for us, or they have.

We talked to the included folks, but knock on wood, so far so good.

Long bridge construction phase, private indentments.

So back at a previous board meeting, you all gave me the authority to enter into this agreement.

So what this is, is that we've got our project agreement, and as we move forward with CSX, we enter into addendums to that project agreement.

sets the terms for the construction work that CSX is going to do specifically here on Long Bridge.

So our construction partners do the construction, but the rail specific work is being done by CSX.

We gave you a bigger briefing on this last time.

When you all give me authority, I've had authority for 90 days, we're at about 106 days right now.

This agreement is now very close to being ready to be signed, but it wasn't within the 90 days.

The big hold up there was we were finalizing language on the work wing, because it clearly says that here's what the winners will look like.

Because that negotiation took water and we expected this hasn't been signed, so what I'm asking for today is you all to re-authorize me to enter into this agreement and we'll help you get a sign of this.

We've been in motion for that, but we haven't answered any questions.

Aye.

Carried.

Thank you.

All right, passenger service updates.

This is nothing but business.

I mean, I am thrilled to make this presentation because ridership continues to set records.

December, we just got the December update, and it's the highest single month in Virginia State's history, so shout out to the team.

And we'll talk about this a little later, but the

has really been positive.

Riders say, wow, I mean, the restaurants are clean.

We had great experience.

It's really been a good team effort to get people, more and more people on the train.

This is our overall ridership.

You've seen me here.

I'll go route by route.

North of the set of record action in all the routes in the highest monthly ridership for their individual service.

You see the other service all continue to be good news.

Another thing that's important is I go route by route.

The customer on time

And on three of our four routes, we've seen good improvement on that.

We continue to work on that.

The capital projects, once we get the capital projects done and we have more infrastructure and less bottleneck situations, we'll do even better.

But that is another good news story.

So this is Roanoke, we've got two million round trips.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these because it's all good news.

But if you have any questions, happy to answer them.

Here's the north road beginning where it's 77% on time before, because that's a much better number than it was last year.

Well, one thing, we didn't think we would break through the center of riders last year, because last year, the last day of the Thanksgiving break was in December.

This year, the full of Thanksgiving fell into November.

So the fact that we actually surpassed last year, it shows you the desire for people to take training, avoid congestion on the road.

And then this is just the chart we show every month that compares our states for ridership per train to the other big states, Pennsylvania, New York, St. North Carolina.

We see that several other are well above what they're experiencing, which are still there.

They're setting records as well in many cases.

We attribute a lot of that to that.

Bless the paper.

Uh, customer service standards, so I talked about this earlier, but this is the first order where the customer is just going to be entered.

We, we are the only state right now that has such an agreement with Amtrak.

What it does is it sets out these 17 standards and there are inspections that take place to ensure that Amtrak is meeting these standards.

We gave a great, in a year-great spirit to Amtrak where we worked with the program.

The good news, and I'm overusing the word partnership today, I apologize.

But it's a partnership with Amtrak.

So when it first started, the head of operations at Amtrak and I sent a letter out to all of the crews saying, look, you're going to see inspectors, you're going to see these scorecards.

These are not a gut situation.

You're not looking to get people in trouble.

You're looking to find places that are either under-invested in or will not pay any attention that customers may not be happy with.

And as you see going from the top of that little chart on the bottom, there's a whole lot of pink on that first line.

and then you get down to the bottom, the most recent, before the quarter of 2025, you see a lot more green and a lot less pink.

So this is the first quarter where we actually went live.

We've talked about this before and I'm happy to talk to you all about it.

This is in more detail, but we have a structure set up where if there's a quarter that they miss, Amtrak misses, they've gotta come up with a remediation plan.

And it was a whole process for how we can work together to make those pink categories green.

But another one we've gotten great,

feedback down with passengers who have seen better experiences on the train, but also from crew members saying, look, I've been complaining about this for a long time.

Thank you for giving me the attention it needs because we want it to be fixed.

I mean, crew members, we find want passengers to have good experiences as well.

And then cost recovery, we're going to talk more about this in finance.

96% is tremendous, but let's not applaud yet.

A big part of that is the way that we allocate our grants.

Again, we'll talk more about it in finance.

This year, because the first half of this fiscal year, we have had so much work to do on capital projects.

A lot of our special, even our administrative costs, we allocate to each capital project.

Last year we had less spending on capital projects, and at the end of the year with FRA, we reconciled and we had to, so here's what we spent on capital projects, and then we allocate overhead to those capital projects.

That overhead rate last year is what we used to put overhead in place, and then it tended to be reconciled.

Because the capital work has gone up so much, which is great, we got something to apply for, but that overhead is much higher than it should be, so we saw that.

We can't reconcile the upgrade until the end of the year.

We're going to work with them and figure out a better way.

So we'll actually move it to a later chart that says we spent X amount of money on admin costs and a negative amount is actually our year today.

It's just not, it's a bookkeeping phenomenon that will fix from the end.

We think that the cost of upgrades is probably right in the 70s where we think, truly, 96 is not, 96 is not what was calculated today, but that's not the number.

Does that have any questions on that?

And then here's the operations budget overall, and you see it as categories.

We're actually in pretty good shape across the board.

Our operating expense, Amtrak, has been charging us less than we expected.

They also are focused on efficiency, as I'm sure you folks have read, and you've been seeing that in the cost department.

So again, I started off with all the good news.

Here's that same show.

Well done, I'm constantly listening to that, even if we're going to adjust our accounting, right?

It's really improved.

We can talk about watching you at the station.

We're watching you at the station, the improvements, the clarity.

So I'm going to be quick because for a lot of these projects, we have construction updates.

But for those who have been here, who are new, we want to keep the same cadence that you're going to see in the monthly reports DJ sends out.

Even when we have months, we have construction updates on these projects.

We keep these in the executive director's report.

There are a few things I do want to point out before we get to construction updates next.

When you see project costs, that's all in project costs.

That's not the contract.

That's not the contract we have with, say, Skanska.

Some of our even rail partners say, wait,

That budget's higher than we expected it was because it concludes our costs.

It might include the cost of CSX, might include the cost of Kinley Horn to program manager, includes past costs such as design.

So again, you all did not approve the $1.6 billion contract if it was closer to a billion.

But again, we're going to get rich, just clearly that's not what we're talking about.

Yes, exactly.

So again, Long Bridge North, Skanska Flatiron is our contractor, and DJ Lee talks about some work going on out there.

Long Bridge South, our contractor is Trumbull Faye Wegman, they go by Long Bridge Rail Partners.

It's okay to call them Trumbull Faye Wegman.

and they're doing they're doing the work over the Potomac.

So the north is in DC, this works over the Potomac, they're also doing the pet bike bridge that DC and others are contributing to.

I'll change the foretrack again of the project that's going to be in construction updates report.

This is work that's closely tied into the VRE's work at King and Commonwealth as well.

We had that groundbreaking back in October

up at the Outjanger Force Station.

This project's also gonna benefit from some of the work windows, too.

And I also do wanna point out that there's, you see the little VRE symbol there?

Right about here, there's something called Seminary Yard that I think the VRE team says in their sleep because they are putting trains there for the help with the work windows and they're gonna be moving their midday storage facility from up near Union Station, up near Amtrak, down to Seminary Yard.

So there's a lot going on.

In this area, you've also got the Algernon Station improvements and Crystal City Station improvements.

So Algernon, Fort Tract is something like six projects, I don't know.

A lot of work going on there.

We're going to get into this during the construction updates report.

Same with the Springville Bypass, Flatiron, Herzog is the joint venture there.

Also work going on out there.

Herbury and others say they take the train.

Franconia-Lorton Third Track is a project you need to hear a lot more about moving forward.

We're gonna talk about it a few times today.

This is a project in the same area as the Franconia Bypass.

It is six miles, which is a big chunk of miles.

This actually loves it when they get six more miles of dispatch with Third Track.

You're gonna hear a lot more about it because it's going to procurement later this year.

CSX will put the bid on the street this summer.

And this is that, as you can see,

at Final Design, and we'll be ready to bid later this summer.

So this is a project similar to last year when we had the Al Janger projects and other projects moving forward.

You'll continue to hear more and more about this project.

And the construction updates today too.

New River Valley, I was just out there yesterday with Rob and others.

They have an amazing amount of work.

In fact, it's happening so fast, some of the pictures we're going to show you today are not as up to date as I wished.

I don't want to scare Mary Stone and send me pictures to insert at 9.30 this morning.

I didn't do that to you myself, but it just took my week.

The progress there has been great.

We have video and picture to show you about that later.

This is one that Northbrook Southern is constructing.

Andrew Dick Pitzen is their contractor, and the community is so excited about this project.

Some other projects you'll hear a lot more about this year, and we'll include a map in the future, are sidings projects.

Now what are sidings?

Sidings are about three miles long.

Why is that different from a six-mile third track?

A six-mile third track, the trains will continue to run.

And a siding, usually a freight train will pull over and stop for the most part.

But in the future, the sidings are going to be merged into the other tracks.

You're going to have a continuous track.

So the sidings you're going to hear a lot more about are Siding A, which we have talked about.

That's near Leland Station in the Stafford County area.

And there's actually three projects in one there.

We've talked about this with some of the board in the past.

We have to close Leland Road.

So that's a project that we put out of early procurement

and we also have a utility project.

So there's up and down the rail corridors, you're gonna have utilities, you're gonna have pipelines, you're gonna have sewers.

In this case, there's some sewers around the utilities for Stafford County.

The Stafford County's gonna pay us back to actually the dollar amount we see.

Stafford's gonna pay us back over a few years of looking over financing, more or less not angry at it.

So that's the cost that they have to with their contracts with CSX and CSX has to be that

That contract, they have to move it, but they came to us and said, we're a little resource constrained.

You guys are already out there in the field.

This is something you can do.

So we're undertaking that.

And then there's the actual track work, which is the top one, which is the big dollar amount, the 157 million.

But that project, and Lila Road is going to be closed starting about this time next year.

So that's something more, we'll hear more and looking at Katie, who has board members from Stafford, who will be hearing more.

We have already been out in the

to talk to them.

We've been to FAMPO, we've been to the Frederick-Briggs MPO, we've been to Stafford County itself, and to VDOT.

For the board's benefit to Stafford County until the relocation, we don't have a line item in our budget for that.

So later in this meeting, we can have some flexibility to add a line item.

What that line item will do is will just allow us to spend the money and then have money come back in for a third party project.

We have a line item, I think that in our budget, the costs are going up a little bit more.

But again, to be covered by Stafford County.

So it'll be cut.

OK, thank you.

When we first had a center budget, it was a 0% sign.

Now that we have, and you'll hear especially new members who came over and over again, the members who've been on the board, we don't, we really don't like to put out a cost estimate of 0% to center.

Those who have been in the construction industry understand 30% is better, it's not perfect, but you at least have an order of magnitude of 30% to center.

We're at that point where we can have a better customer.

So that's the change you're going to see today.

Thank you.

Oh, other exciting projects.

So Potomac Creek Third Track.

That is, sorry, let me talk about that.

Let me go to the next page.

Taylorsville Third Track.

Hanover County.

It's north of Ashland.

It is not in Ashland.

We're not building a third track in North of Ashland.

Just want to be clear for anyone that's listening.

It's south of the Doswell Interchange.

For anyone who takes the train, you see an old depot there at Doswell.

It's just south of that, but it goes for two miles.

That is a relatively new project.

We moved it.

Some of you might remember for the older project we had, which is called the Hanover Third Track, we would have to rebuild Route 1.

While we love building new things from VDOT, we don't love it that much.

So we don't want to rebuild a new bridge if it wasn't necessary.

Up at Taylorsville, there's a road

that we have to cross under that is already wide enough from four tracks.

It's actually the road into the amusement park there.

So we don't have to build it in road there.

So that's why we put the siding a little bit north.

Now let's go to Woodbridge, Woodbridge Station.

If you think about that, it's just south of there.

That is another siding that will actually tie in to, eventually tie in other sidings north of that.

That is one that's also coming online.

So all these C, D, E, and F are generally at zero, well, we're a little bit past zero percent design.

We're getting to 30% design later this year.

The reason I'm pausing on this slide is because later this year, you will hear a lot more about that 30% design cost estimate.

So there could be changes.

It probably won't be for the May budget, but we could have amendments in the summertime, much like we had last summer for Alexander and Fortratt when we get that 30% cost estimate for these projects, because they're at 0% of design now, and we might have new costs.

We should have new cost estimates later this, probably this summer for these projects.

Woodbridge is obviously the Woodbridge Station, Aquia Creek is in Stafford County, I think the Brook Station there, Brook Station and Stafford, and Crossroads is near Scorsavania, is at the south end of the VRE territory to add some track and crossovers there.

So you'll be hearing a lot more.

Generally done, L'Enfant is a project that we are contributing over $50 million to 53.2 that VRE is leading

and I believe they're putting that procurement out soon on the street for CMGC which is similar to our bypass procurement.

I think we're going to cover some of these other long-range re-stations during construction of these reports and King and Commonwealth bridges again being led by VRE with most of the funding coming from VPRA because VRE already had an long-range re-station project and to have

One contractor for that, another contractor for the bridge literally next to it would have made no sense.

You need to have one contractor for that area.

CSX is already doing the track work north and south of it.

These are in the report.

I don't have to go over each one of them.

Metric station, I will say though, we are 100% design and moving forward with that.

I think you'll see a budget amendment for that today.

Build a new parking lot, you often touch the drains below it.

Touching the drains below it means you're doing some heavier construction work and costing a little more money there.

So you will see a bunch of them later today for ETRIC.

I do want to point out that Stanton Station, we will have a Fed State Partnership Grant.

So that was, we had a current Fed State Partnership Grant and that, the FRA held last year and said, we're not going to reward.

They combined the money together.

There's over five billion, I believe, for Fed State Partnership.

So we're applying for three projects.

One is Stanford Station.

Another one is Richmond Layover Facility.

We still have a funding gap there.

And the third one is designed for what we call the Occoquan River Third Track, which would tie into the Franconia-Lorton Third Track.

That is next.

That is a phase three project, but we want to get the design going.

We do have some design for the northern two miles of that, but it's over four miles and it's five miles.

So we're just applying for design for the Occoquan River Third Track.

The Occoquan River is not going to be a small project.

For anyone who's driven by Route 1 or gone by the train, bridge is high up, can't close Route 1 to build it, it's not going to be an easy project.

Some people like the channels, like the fun.

I think we have some engineers that do.

But that's one we've got to get into design to see what are the true cost estimates for that.

And again, here are our expenditures.

I should say our expenditures are appropriate throughout the whole year.

There are some projects where you will have a big jump, especially when you have an insurance or bond payment or something like that happen.

So if some of them are underneath what we thought we'd expect, some months you'll see a big jump.

I don't go Long Bridge and the bypass.

I just approve some large payments.

We call it either mobilization payment or insurance payment.

Same for Western Rail, I think you'll see a lot, some big jumps, especially for the, when you say Cambria platform, that's a newer route.

It's at the, we actually have two projects there, it's the project at Cambria, which is in Kristinburg, and then the Radford Land facility to be visited both yesterday.

And right away, acquisition, we keep this in every update, in the monthlies as well.

You can see the progress being made.

We talked to the board about, I believe it's been about two years now,

with some of the challenges of right-of-way, and that the bound maps, the survey work we did was different from the bound maps.

So you have to do it the right-of-way.

You have to get that under your feet before you get to construction, because you do not run a solid construction project when a neighbor says, wait a second, that's my land.

So we cleared all that out.

We're at the point, when we get to the point where we are, we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We talked to CSX, for instance, to say, hey, can you put that procurement out?

Because if you put it out in June,

By August, the right-of-way is going to be complete and you're not going to award until September or October anyway.

So we do work with the freight railroads to see to not always wait until right-of-way is done before we put out procurement.

We want to get moving as fast as possible and CSX allowed us to do that in Alexandria Fortrack, for instance.

And I think that's generally it for me.

I talked about some of the grant projects and February 6 is the date.

Here's the dollar amount that we're going to be applying

the date for those projects I've mentioned.

We also are applying for a smaller grant for the Central Virginia Transportation, which is I think about as old as we are.

I think roughly about the same time frame, Mariia's gonna be close.

But I think similar to say MBTA where they give out grants and they receive money, we are applying for that for a grant there as well.

So North Carolina, I'm always a little hesitant to speak for another state, but they have been in conversations with us, so I'm going to try to encapsulate that.

They've been talking to FRA

about obligating the $58 million grant for design for Richmond to Raleigh.

It's not full design.

It's a preliminary level of design.

And I've been told they've had good conversations with the operating on that.

They also have another grant, a $1.1 million grant for construction.

They're also in conversations with that.

That is further toward Raleigh.

That is not in Virginia.

But we are awaiting that grant money.

We have 39.5.

That's the Virginia portion.

There's also some design also needs to happen in North Carolina.

You're familiar with it, but for everyone's benefit, Richmond and Raleigh is an abandoned quarter from Petersburg to about nine miles in at Richmond, North Carolina.

And the south of there, there's active track from which way down to Raleigh.

So we have six segments in Virginia that we broke up by segment for design efforts.

And we did put out a procurement a few years ago

We have been, I see John Kostner back there, had a procurement.

We have been in good conversations with the firms that we've been talking to for those procurements.

And hopefully we'll see some movement here in the next couple months.

But conversation we're having have been good.

And we're getting good signals that they should hopefully get that grant obligated by FRA.

So then money can then come to for design efforts in Virginia.

Part of the Appomattox Bridge.

Is that included in it?

Yeah, Appomattox Bridge, so then we have two of those six segments in Virginia are active track.

That's segments one and two.

Segments one being Richmond and two being the Petersburg area, Appomattox River Bridge.

Three, four, five, and six are the abandoned track.

And we've indicated, not just again, we feel very strong in North Carolina, segment two, the Appomattox River Bridge is one we want to see with the limited amount of money we have, we want to make sure that gets to a level design that we have a decent cost estimate.

because for those who are not aware, the Halifax River Bridge is a single track bridge.

And it's the only single track in a 40, 50 mile area that is double tracked.

So you have a bottleneck.

CSX had a train break down there, I'd say about a year ago now, and it gummed up the whole East Coast.

It's also in Norfolk.

Yes, thank you.

So I've been on a train where, going to Norfolk, and

It's waiting on another train to come through because you have the North Carolina train and long distance trains coming up and you're waiting on signal currents to go to Norfolk because you're basically you have to wait for the trains to pass.

So if you have two tracks, you won't have that because it's also two tracks all the way to Norfolk too.

So getting a new bridge and figuring out are we building a new two track bridge?

Are we building a new one track bridge next to it?

Getting into design will help us answer those types of questions.

So those are the kind of questions we want to answer

We also have to figure out, I talked about Occoquan River Bridge being a tough bridge to build.

Appomattox is also very high up and you go from rock to rock to rock.

Also, not much road access near there.

And you can really only get a good look for a few of the rail.

There's no public roads that go right up to it.

There's cultural resources at the bottom of the river as well that are going to be difficult.

So again, a challenge that some people want to take on.

We're looking forward to answering some of these questions when we get that grant out.

So thank you for answering that.

Occoquan River Bridge is easy.

Good question, building new.

We're going from two tracks to three tracks in that area, the siting projects.

Actually, sponsor main is a little more complicated because you have the VRE track starting up there, so some places will have some four tracks there.

But, siting projects think about adding a third track, but only for about three miles.

and then some of them in the future will tie into other tracks that we're building.

So eventually we want to build a third track corridor all the way to Spotsylvania and the VRE territory.

So we have phases one and two, which we've talked about.

That is, yes.

No, it's not a minimum.

It's a maximum.

If you're building a siding, it's only two to three miles.

About 80 to 90% of the trains can fit in two miles, but the railroads have a precision schedule.

They want to have trains up to three miles.

Now, the luxury on the corridor to here, you have nine miles of Arkandale around the Quantico area that is now triple tracked.

Siding A, which is going a little faster than some of the other projects, is going to have three tracks as well.

And so you're going to have a lot of opportunities, CSXs for the dispatchers, when some of these projects are done, to have a lot more maneuverability up and down the corridor.

So the dispatchers will have more tracks the better, just like anyone who's driving.

More lanes the better.

More lanes, more than two lanes.

Thanks.

Any other questions?

I do want to mention, there were actually two projects at the very end.

Norfolk South is also constructed in Wilfrid and Galveston, so if you hear a word from out in the western Prince William area, there's really a sign there.

Actually, no, that's not a sign.

That is seven miles of little track.

And also, road and yard work has to be complete before we

Go to the New River Valley, that will be complete this year, and Amtrak is actually looking forward to testing out that track.

So, New River Valley, you heard a lot about in the next year or two.

This is a component, we can't forget about Roanoke Yard.

When we were with Norfolk Southern Executives yesterday, after they left us, they were going to see the progress in Roanoke Yard.

Because Roanoke's a big yard, you don't want to get trains stuck in the yard.

Good morning everybody.

My name is Laura Farmer.

I'm the Nation Chief Financial Officer here at VPRA.

I introduced myself virtually last month and I'm really happy to be here.

My background is I've spent six years at the CFO at VDOT and 21 years there doing all finance work.

So I've kind of been six weeks in trying to understand everything.

So I'll do my best today, but may require some follow up if you have any questions, but thank you again for understanding.

This provides a view of our rolling deposits into the Commonwealth Rail Fund.

There is no concern with meeting the expectations in terms of the revenue estimate for this year.

Statewide, the Commonwealth Transportation Fund is trending a whole percentage above the revenue forecast.

The blip that we see in September inflections happened every year.

There is one revenue source for insurance premiums.

and its full deposit comes in September and so every year you'll see that jump.

It's not indicative of a change that is ongoing.

This provides a rolling 12-month trend analysis of our investments in both the local government investment pool as well as our managed portfolio.

We had a significant deposit in October related to our last payment from the 95th concession arrangement from VDOT

My job in the next couple of months is to really dig into our current cash balance and investments and understand what we expect the projects to do to make sure that we're investing in the right places and the right timing to ensure that we get the right return on the investment and maximize that and the cash that we have on hand.

And so this will be an area that I'll be working on in the next couple of months.

But as you can see, our average invested balance is just 578 million.

and our income year to date for interest is 12, just over 12.

In terms of our managed investments, the gain over this period is about 2.3%.

We feel pretty good about that based on everything that we've seen and the work that the agency has done here related to the managed investments.

This just provides a picture of that and the distribution.

our investments, and again, this is an area that I've been looking into and doing a lot more work in.

When I came from VDOT, I treasury invest for the commonwealth, so this is an area I'm not used to, but I'm also really excited about digging and seeing what we can do for VPRA.

And this just represents our, based on both pieces, the LTRP and the managed investments,

and the returns month over month.

It's continuing to look like we're reflective against the federal benchmark.

One question about the return on managed portfolio.

Is the 2.3% gross or net of fees?

That's net.

Okay.

And then

We also, as I emailed earlier this week, Jared Goodman, who was our Director of Communications and External Affairs, took a position in the Spanburg administration, so we are posting for that position.

That's on our website.

That's a huge gain for the administration and a loss for us.

Thankfully, Jared did a good job of building a team of folks who

We're in good shape here.

As you can see, we're a little over on payroll and we're a lot under our professional services.

That's just more of our folks doing work.

We've got a high asset management person, so a lot of that work has been coming through our staff.

So overall, we're looking good there.

And then you see the allocation of capital projects compared to the administrative work.

budget adjustments.

So this is one with the ministry's like this is the one I botched earlier.

We are requesting a new line item for third party projects.

And what this is for is this region work on behalf of somebody who's going to repay us.

Stafford is not one of the folks who falls under this line.

They've got our line.

But when someone comes to us and they're doing some kind of work close to our right way, we've got to do design work.

We charge them for that work.

They pay us.

And this is where that's going to be.

This is what we don't have in mind.

Stafford is not one of them, but we're requesting the authorities to have this line in there.

It's $175,000.

That's our estimate.

It doesn't actually come out of our money.

If it's money, it will be reimbursed.

So we were hoping for a motion to approve that.

And someone denied me starting that loan, which staff is not part of it.

Second.

Here are contracting updates.

As you know anything that we have over $25,000 we put in this every month and these are pretty standard just continue to move projects forward.

Biodiversity, just our as part of our objective in achieving this explanation every single month that it's important just to understand the difference between the media and safety and micro-business.

Basically, the board is then are established by Danielle and Mr. Costner, who is here, correct, so fascinating among them.

We set a goal every year, we preview on that goal.

This year, our goal is seven and a half percent.

Through the first quarter, we are behind in that goal.

This does not include second quarter numbers.

We don't have an indication on what those look like.

You see on the left side that discretionary spend and non-discretionary spend, they only track non-discretionary.

So for example, we've got to indirect that money, we can't donate that to someone else.

but just a reminder that we focus on this and maybe every procurement process is a huge champion for small business and we'll continue to work towards this goal.

Any questions on that?

Just I think you said we're trying not to try to retract the count the swam against discretionary state while we go out to the market.

Yeah, we don't count them out.

Sorry about this.

All right.

Thank you.

I was going to ask one thing, and this has to do with, I guess, the change in the weather, where they're calling for a lot more ice in the area.

Do we have that?

I mean, how do we plan for something like that, especially if power lines are going to go down and trees fall?

Yes, absolutely.

And keeping the tracks clear is the most important thing.

Back in the last time, we had a huge snow event.

We had a couple situations where trains were out and trees fell in the southern, trees fell in CSX, and we worked with them.

We have teams set up ahead of time where we do calls, what we're prepared for, where trains are going to be able to point at the storm, VDOT and

The Secretary's Office have a huge effort that they some kind of pay attention to.

But our work is more on Amtrak and the freight rail roads.

Interestingly, over the course of the last 10 years, Amtrak has taken a shift and actually support the shift.

It used to be that they would run trains no matter what and kind of like the post office from the 1930s through the 1930s.

They have shifted away from that.

They prime more into a customer friendly, hey, you know what, we've got a storm coming Saturday and Sunday.

I don't want to cancel these trains, but we will be ready to go when the storm's over.

The old model was, it's a three-hour trip.

Yes, we got it in in 10 hours, we qualified, and we got it there.

Exactly, exactly.

Because you're timed out, it's frozen, and it takes days to recover from that.

Their new approach, which again, I think is the right one, is to cancel the train and be ready with a nice, warm, safe train when the storm's over to move all these people.

Because what you found is when there's a lot of snow,

People would not show up at a train anyway.

You'd be running the train, you'd be running planes, or getting exhausted through for a dozen weeks.

So if you have to leave or do not exactly, they're never in regular contact with us about what they want to change.

Because they run on freight right-of-way, sometimes it's the freight saying, I don't care if you want to run, you're not going to run.

But it's a good example of strong communication.

We talk a lot about

And I'll also just underscore the governor does have cabinet folks who are talking conversation to prepare for the weather incident.

We'll see how big it is this weekend.

And VDOT is leading that for us.

Good morning everybody.

For anybody who doesn't remember who I am, I'm Michael Westman, General Counsel for VPRA.

Here to talk to you today is an agreement between us and VDOT relating to a toll-backed financing.

We were created in 2020 by the General Assembly.

That same year, the General Assembly authorized the Commonwealth Transportation Board to issue toll-backed debt in support of our Long Bridge project.

The tolls are derived from a section of Interstate 66 inside the beltway between 495 and Route 29.

It's about a nine-mile stretch, the gatherer.

The way the toll lanes work is they're four hours in the morning going east, four hours in the afternoon going west.

The lanes are tolled during that period.

They're actually a high occupancy toll, so if you meet the high occupancy requirement, you ride for free.

If you don't meet the high occupancy requirement, you pay the toll.

The toll is dynamic.

It's based on congestion in real time.

At any rate, this highway facility generates toll revenues, and the CTB is authorized to pledge those toll revenues, the proceeds of which will be provided to us in support of our Long Bridge project.

VDOT is acting on behalf of the CTP as far as negotiating loan documents, putting in an application with USDOT.

So the lender will be USDOT.

Oh, and certainly VDOT has put in an application.

They're acting on behalf of CTP, like I just said.

And so the way it works is we're running the project.

We're delivering design and construction of the project.

We're using the total proceeds to do that.

We are charged with

Applying toll proceeds for eligible costs.

We're going to supply USDOT with all the relevant reporting for the project, et cetera, et cetera.

We're the project deliverers, we're the project experts.

Whereas CTB is going to actually be the debtor.

They're going to be the ones who are charged with collecting the toll revenues over the years and actually paying the debt service on their own.

So we have nothing to do with paying the loan.

We are using the toll proceeds.

So we have to collaborate with VDOT in order to do this.

So we've negotiated a very

Single agreement that's in the board package that says what the roles and responsibilities are.

I have to say VDOT has been a tremendous partner on this.

They've already put an application in for us.

They've already studied traffic and revenue on the facility.

They've done a lot of work already on some regressive financing.

You can see we're expected to close sometime next calendar year.

If there's anything I missed there.

I think that's pretty much it.

I will say VDOT does have a duty under this agreement to provide to us 100% of the loan proceeds.

So it's just all going right to us to use your project.

Sorry, I should have started with that.

So VDOT operates banks.

Yeah, exactly.

I got you.

Yes.

To be determined, the thing right now, documents open both.

If there are any other questions, entertain a motion.

We have a motion.

Second.

Second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay.

Aye.

Aye.

All in favor say nay.

All in favor say nay.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

I'm going to hand over to some truly excellent people.

This is my Tia Page.

These are the projects we're going to cover today.

This is not, again, the totality of all the projects.

These are projects that have moved into construction or at least some form.

I asked her there because I mentioned a procurement later this year.

We have some really works on the Frank O'Lorenburg track project.

I don't want anyone trying to misinform you, but since we do have some really works there, we're going to talk about that as well.

You can, again, you see estimated date of completion and the budget, again, is all in.

That doesn't mean it's the contractor's cost.

It's budget is all in.

So I'm going to start off with Long Bridge.

Shirley and I saw you come in.

Feel free to say it here or over there.

It's up to you.

Charlene is our director of the Long Bridge both browsers, Long Bridge North and South.

Everyone you're going to see in the next few people that come up are VPR employees.

We do have support staff that help us, such as folks at WSP, who leads our Long Bridge partners, the support team owners route, call them different places around the country.

And Frank O'Neill-Bondass has HNTB that also helps.

Kimley Horne also helps with some of these projects as well.

Hi again, Sherlene Cleveland, Senior Director of the Long Bridge Project.

We're going to talk first about the north package, which has been underway, as you may remember, since early 2024, about through the design phase.

And then we've had quite a few early works packages.

EWP's are these different numbers that refer to different packages.

So you can see that we've made really good progress on getting through those.

The select train flaring is done.

Working really hard on getting the crash wall C mods done, UWV4, field office construction, and East Potomac Park, utility relocations, and Main Avenue so that we can get going on building that bridge there.

So you might recall that is the critical path for the entire home.

We've also done some demonstration files on Main Avenue.

I'll show just a picture of that.

and they're getting ready to erect their trestle in Washington Channel which will be used to construct the new channel bridge.

Upcoming, we're very excited, we'll be starting on retaining Mall L that's under the Maryland Avenue overbuild and we'll allow for the widening of the tracks off to the west in DC.

We did start work windows on January 12th, a little bit of time is probably out there in the day so that our contractor can be more productive

having to jump off the trucks all the time as trains come through.

And we do expect that crash policy will be done at the end of the year.

So just some pictures of what we just checked.

This is adjacent to the Washington Channel, the Marina parking lot is what you can see off to the left.

We've done all that tree clearing that we may have talked about the Heritage Tree too that we had to take down.

We got legislation from DC that allows us to do that.

So all that work has been done now too.

Some good news also about this marina parcel is it's looking like we should be getting that relatively soon, which we were afraid was going to take a long, long time to get, but maybe it's up to us.

So that will open up this whole area for contractor units for staging.

Let's see, what else we got?

We have the field office construction there and East Potomac Park.

They are claiming that they're going to be ready to occupy that by early February, the next couple of weeks.

that you can see under the Maryland Avenue Overbuild, the Crassville C Modifications, they've already done Crassville D and Crassville F. Utility work that's going on in Main Avenue, gas line relocation, storm sewer relocation, this is to get them out of the way so that we can start with the bridge.

And then we can just see the demonstration piles that they've done, micro piles in Main Avenue, just to see what the capacity of those are as they support the structures.

I did hear you had a question about the funding from DETA or from DC for the project.

That's good to hear.

So $52 million, and that's for the PED Bridge.

Is it called PED Bridge?

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so Long Bridge South Package, I'm going to name both of those agents.

They've been under contract since January of 2005.

They have been working on building their bulkheads.

The first order of business those will support is test files.

for the new bridge and that is looking like they will be done with this overhead construction by early March and then by the end of March they should be done completely dry with those test files.

You can imagine that the airport is watching us very anxiously.

I delivered a new crane this week and no kinds of calls but we're meeting with them next week.

We do meet with them all the time.

They're all the right people to coordinate with so I think that partnership is going pretty well.

So they will be finishing their scope validation period at the end of February.

They have done tree removal, installed vibration monitoring equipment.

They've been looking at some riprap from the old bridge that was used for scouter protection that is kind of in our footprint.

So they've been doing quite a bit of probing, we call it, out there to kind of

Determine the extents of that and then figure out what it is and how we can relocate it, or we can just push it off to the side.

So that's one of the big activities they're working on right now.

Test file, we talked about that, CSX signal relocation of Roslyn Arrowlocking, and then we've also talked about the molding.

So there's some pretty pictures of work that we've completed.

Tree clearing, if you've been out there on the GW Parkway recently, you may have noticed this big open area that we've cleared

and putting in a riprap and a gravel kind of thing to stabilize a lot.

You can see some of the monitoring devices we put next to the yellow light bridge.

Obviously, as we do our work, we want to make sure we keep that bridge safe from a lot of...

Here's just a picture of a stone.

I showed you how to move the foot down.

And then this probing operation I told you about with the riprap and the extensive...

And so I think that's it.

Let me ask.

I've already had a conversation and I'm not sure exactly how it does and except that it was an effort to get some of the congressional members involved in getting DC to let up a little bit with attention if you would with regard to, well, the hours

that we can work.

I haven't heard that.

Yeah, so I've not heard anything about professional post-K fall.

But for those that don't recall, the work windows in Washington, DC, you can work starting 7 a.m., no earlier, and 7 p.m., no later.

And there are very strict noise and vibration

Straight like the noise is 65 or 75 decibels is really low.

We all applaud for Shirley's spare presentation.

We've been working with the mayor's office and the city administrator to get waivers for those.

And they have been very, very responsive to us.

In fact, it's for me instead of it being this week.

And no work ever on Sunday.

I've not heard anything about the congressional activity.

Now some of it seemed to be aimed at

Saturdays and Sundays.

So Saturdays are work day, but Sundays, I've not heard that, but we're looking at all that because the faster we get it done, the faster we get back to normal schedules, the faster we get all of the service that we're working toward.

And again, DC's been great.

I would say they're no harder on us than they are on themselves.

DDOT follows the same tribes of policies that they've been asking us to follow, but obviously they are restricted.

Any other questions?

All right.

Good morning, Madam Chair, Board members.

My name is Jeff Belzier.

I'm the Senior Director for Northern Virginia Projects.

I'm going to give a couple of updates on our projects in the Alexandria and Franconia Corners.

So the Alexandria Fourth Track is really underway now.

CSX selected their contractor last fall.

As you know, we had a groundbreaking in November.

CSX has provided notice to proceed to their contractor, Faye, on January 9th.

So Faye is now doing all the typical things that a contractor gets started would be doing, mobilizing the field office, doing erosion sediment controls, site access, things like that.

CSX is also finalizing some of their utility relocations.

They own a fiber optic cable duct bank that runs the entire corridor.

So they're finalizing some of that work with their tenants as well.

So we should start to see work in the field really by the end of this month up on the northern end of the project at the RO interlocking.

So it'll be good to see.

One of the visible signs of progress right now that we're seeing is we're getting deliveries of our special track work.

One good thing we did about this time last year was we entered into an early works package with CSX and allowed them to procure special track work for the two interlockings on the project.

One at RO at the northern end, the other at AF at the southern end.

We also have a control point north of Alexander Station called Slater's Lane.

Those materials take months to get it procured and designed and brought in.

And they're now starting to come in.

So it's good to see the kind of the fruits of that bearing right when we need it.

This is up at RO.

is that Faye the contractor will be grading out the site.

They'll get it configured for the four track configuration and then CSX track and signal forces will come in.

They'll put these panels together.

They'll weld the rails together and start installing and commissioning the signal.

Just another example of some of how these special track work panels are delivered.

The geometry of the rails and the switches and the ties are very precise.

So these are fabricated offsite at the plant.

They're split up into these panels and brought in

you know, assembled and welded together later on.

We're also doing some brush clearing and some remaining tree clearing along the corridor as well at the King and Bridge Station.

So staying within the Alexandria corridor, we have the Alexandria Station and King and Commonwealth Bridges Project.

This is the joint effort Mike mentioned that DRE is leading.

DRE has had a contractor on board for the last couple of months doing things like their submittals, rights of entry, getting permits with its CSX,

City of Alexandria, WMATA, whatnot.

And we expect that the full notice to proceed as imminent should be happening very soon.

And then VRE's contractor, PICOSA, will be on site doing all the same things that Faye's doing right now, mobilizing, and start to get work done and feel blessed.

The thing that we're really looking at on the bridges is getting jump spans installed.

This is what's going to allow us to start building the foundations for the bridges.

So that's going to be the big effort this spring and into the summer.

Now I'm not just going to throw out a term like jump spans and not explain what they are.

So common rail we're in turn, but just to give you an idea of how important they are, how they're such a big muscle movement on the project, right?

The two bridges that we're building at King Street and Commonwealth Palace, they're longer than the existing bridges, which is great when we're done, right?

We're going to have lots of room for roadway and pedestrian facilities and station access.

When that bridge is done, from an engineering and construction standpoint, it's hard because the new abutments are actually beyond and behind the existing abutments.

So the common technique that we're going to use is to install jump spans, which is essentially creating a new bridge span beyond the existing abutment.

So you put in a new set of spans, new tracks on that span, and then you excavate all the earth out from under that new span to give yourself space to build the new foundation.

So off to the left, you see a drawing.

That's the schematics and theories, plans for how we're going to build the foundation to King Street.

This is a photo up in Connecticut of a jump span in operation.

You know, the other key thing for jump span allows us to actually keep trains in service while we're building the new bridges, which is critical in Alexandria, just given how much traffic runs through the area.

So really good to see this happening.

It's very safety critical.

It's going to be sensitive.

It has to be done at night.

So we can take some time to get that done.

but you are going to see some updates on this in the coming months.

We look forward to seeing that.

So moving south to the Franklin County Springfield Bypass and Franklin County Corridor.

DJ mentioned we have had some challenges getting utilities relocated.

We are making some good incremental progress on that front.

One of the utilities will be out next week, weather permitting, of course, to start moving some fiber optic cable.

But we also have the jet fuel pipeline that needs to move and we're working with that utility as well.

Our contractor, Flatiron Dragados-Herzog, Joint Venture has been on board.

They've been doing great work getting ready to get the site going and get the work going towards the retaining walls that we want to do this year.

This is a little snapshot from one of our

Field cameras, you get to see kind of what's going on in the main area.

This is what we call right now the Ravensworth interlocking where a lot of the bridge work is going to be.

Off to the right you see some of the silt fence that's gone in for E&S controls.

You see a little bit off in the distance we're grading up on the hill for the walls that are going to be going into place.

And then off to the left you see the CSX track crossing.

Getting our crossing across the existing tracks is actually really hard to get approved and done by CSX.

We've actually been able to get three of them approved.

for the bypass, which has been a huge win for the project, because it really allows us to get equipment and materials flowing through the site.

We've had some really good progress in the last month on bypass.

One is that we've gotten our construction general permit from DAQ, so we're fully environmentally cleared to start work.

But the other key one that Mike mentioned in his presentation is that we've acquired almost all the properties that we need, the right-of-way acquisitions that we need for the project.

Most of our right-of-way for the bypass is simply to get access to the site.

And I know I've mentioned it before in presentations before, this is about as remote as you can get in Northern Virginia.

It's really hard to get to the site and all of our acquisitions are simply to get materials and equipment on site.

So it's great that we now have the right-of-way, we now have the environmental clearance to start developing those site access points in all roads.

And the track crossings are a big part of that, of getting equipment flowing across the corridor.

Just a couple other photos of the grading work that's in progress for the retaining walls that we're going to be building on the west side of the corridor, and then some of the temporary drainage that we have to put in place to be compliant with our permits.

And then lastly, the Francona Lord and Third Track.

This project is not in full construction yet.

As Mike mentioned, CSX will be procuring their contract later this summer, but we have been doing some early work for the project.

That Ravensworth interlocking I just showed you, bypass area, we have to retire that interlocking and move it north so that we can build the bridge.

So this fall, this past fall, we started building out a new control point north of Franconia Springfield Station.

CSX is calling it CP Beltway, Control Point Beltway.

It's been graded out, drainage in place.

The panels for this track work have been delivered.

It's just a matter now of CSX track and signal forces coming in, assembling those panels.

testing and commissioning the signal equipment and getting it going.

So with that, I think I'll leave it for now.

Thank you, Jeff.

Morning, Madam Chair.

My name is Rob Pinkney.

I'm the Senior Director of Projects.

I handle projects that are not NOVA or Long Bridge.

So I have about a little over a dozen projects, including the sidings, some of the stations, but I also put double duty as the PM for the Newport Valley Project, which is my pleasure.

Today, we're just going to run through a little video to share Jeff's good track work for now being installed on social media and some other things.

But really excited to kind of really

I'll step back and think of the new folks for Newburgh Valley.

It's actually two different projects and Mike alluded to that.

It's actually one in Cambria with the other part of Christiansburg and also nine miles away at Bradford is the facility.

So we work on those as one big project being delivered by Norfolk Southern to us as a term key project.

It's a little bit different.

So we really have a big collaborative stake in it.

We're paying the bills, we show up to all the meetings, but they're really driving the project.

Help with them, it's really unheard of and you heard Mike say yesterday when we were out there, they had six executives fly up from Atlanta and join us for a site, but it's really important to them, they are really digging it.

Amtrak has been a great partner, we're having multiple meetings a week, and it's gone, anybody who's keeping track, we went from zero to construction in about nine months, which is unheard of, right?

And we're well into construction now, we're excited to share some pictures and some video for that.

We're still on track for sometime in 2027,

But there are, when in 2027, extra work to do after they turn off, you know, basically new housing and just the keys.

And then we have to do some extra work to get up and running with the digital technology piece of things.

So, working on that.

But we've really got some good stuff done already.

I alluded to the turnout switch in the western portion.

We've got over a hundred drill shafts done to support the platform.

The platform is about a thousand feet long and about two thirds of that is covered by a nice canopy.

Pretty robust.

Keep you out of the snow and rain out there.

Over at the layover site, we've done

A landing strip worth of light poles.

There's a picture of them that looks like a light pole every about 50 feet.

That's the Amtrak folks' ability to service a new train.

We're going to the underground conduits and you'll see some of the track actually already skeletonized out there.

They did not embellish that so it needs to come up and get some of the big stuff there.

Ongoing, lots of stuff.

They've been fighting the weather for sure and this weekend is not any help.

But they've done a really good job.

They're getting out of the ground.

We've done a bunch of the green beams.

Surrounds the platform walls, you'll see some signal infrastructure going in.

Exciting stuff around the retaining walls that are starting to come on site.

We'll see that.

We'll show you a little picture of that as well.

Lightweight cellular concrete was used as a fill material.

You'll see the grade of the site.

It's actually pretty challenging.

Everybody's been out there, keep on shooting.

At this tall, this is about

22, 23 feet below or above, excuse me, where the station site is.

So we've got to have some retaining walls and we have to fill some grade to make it a nice, even parking lot.

There will be lots of parking.

I agree it's about 10%.

But with the linear site, like I said, really not as glamorous and a lot of good stuff to look at, but working out a lot of underground utility work, setting up for the infrastructure and the water cabinets and whatnot.

Like I said, coming up, we've got a little still more retaining wall, another retaining wall.

There's actually three different retaining walls at Cambria.

The station, it's like two acres.

It's not very big.

I'll show you a picture.

We'll be looking west and it's a really skinny site.

And the team's done a really good job of fitting.

We're going to have 150 parking spaces out there, three bus spaces, six EV charging stations as well.

So really, this stuff is skinny.

It's going to be a one way in, one way out facility.

Yes.

Not quite yet.

What if it's turned over to us?

Not the right of way.

Yes, the station parts.

Correct.

And the station building is going to be managed by the New River Valley Passenger Rail Station Authority, which is held as an entity.

We're responsible for the track and for the platform, the lighting, the parking, all that.

The previous deal we had, we would have owned the Virginia Line.

We swapped that to get to here.

We also purchased the Manassas Line, so the islands we have in our total is roughly similar.

But it's a good question because we did previously own the track and lane going into their old location, but this is one of the few relatively flat locations, at least where the track is.

and the New River Valley.

So we're going to use about half the yard.

This is with MS. And to DJ's point, so the building will be renovated as a separate project, but it'll be through about a year or two after us.

So we're going to have the station up and running and they're going to sort of work around the building.

That was really around how we got through to us.

I thought we did buy the track the right of way.

I'm talking about those 28, 30 miles we had in the Virginia line all the way from the end of Roanoke yard to the old location that we called Sennabar and Christianburg.

That we don't own any.

We will own the pocket track and the area, the parking lot and the station area.

Well, you said any more.

So what is that?

And then when we came to the board in January of 2023 and said, Holy smokes, this is a total of $15 million.

It's a billion dollars.

Yes.

We were able to renegotiate with Alex Southern.

Yes, I realize that.

Right.

We will have a passenger track that we share with NS as part of an MMW track there as well, and I'll show you a couple of pictures here as well.

Alright, credit goes out to our comms folks.

The New River Valley Passenger Rail Project will enhance freight and extend passenger service between Roanoke and the New River Valley returning passenger rail service to the historic Cambria Yard.

Cambria served rail passengers from 1904 to 1979.

The project will construct a high-level platform, canopy, parking lot, siding track, and layover facility.

In November 2025, Norfolk Southern Cruise installed the Western Turnout, which is a piece of track that lets a train move from one track to another.

The existing section of mainline track is systematically removed using excavators to create the opening for the new turnout.

Crews then level the designated area to create a solid foundation.

The turnout piece was pre-built off-site as a complete skeleton, consisting of ties and rail fastened together.

The pre-assembled turnout is then maneuvered into proper alignment with the adjoining rail segments.

The rail ends are then fixed to achieve a continuous running surface.

The track structure is filled with crushed rock, or ballast, and smooth to bring it into alignment.

These final adjustments ensure the switch, which is the mechanism that moves the turnout, operates smoothly and safely.

The newly installed turnout connects the platform track, which runs parallel to the mainline, allowing passenger trains to transition easily between the two.

So some of that special track work that Jeff showed now getting installed for us out in the NRE.

So it's really exciting.

That's actually the Western turnout that leads into the passenger track.

So here's a shot of the project site at Cambria.

You can see the depot building at the top there.

It's kind of squished in the middle of the blue grayish, if you will.

At the very top is the old white freight building that was way back before, again,

We're going to be using the blue-gray one as part of the new project.

As DJ said, it's a very skinny site.

It's long and skinny.

Like I said, you can see Depot Street to the left, about 20 feet up above.

This picture is to show the drill shafts operation.

This is actually a little bit dated, but it gives a good overview of the site.

This is a little bit more recent.

On the left is cellular concrete.

So basically, it's sort of looks like it feels like cool whip.

It hardens up.

It's like a flow of a fill.

It's my pick-up piece about this big yesterday with one hand.

Do you know about the strength?

But it's really used to, you know, pull us up to the grave.

We have some poor soils out there as well.

And this kind of reduces the load on the cane wall.

So we're going to have a retaining wall, if you will, around the edges of both of those at the far left and along the track to support the parking lot.

So the parking lot will be perched up on that cellular concrete.

Off to the right, just out of the picture, would be the depot building.

We've done a lot of storm sewer work out there.

There's almost over a thousand feet of pipe in the ground already.

So we're kind of coming around the corner on that.

Good stuff.

This is a platform coming along.

Again, so here's the building, easy reference point, you're looking west on the left picture.

Those are the grade beams.

So underneath those grade beams, you can see sticking out of the ground and with an orange on top of the rebar, that's the drilled shafts.

Those are about 25 feet long, or deep I should say.

Like I said, over 100 of those, they support the grade beams, which is all that epoxy coated rebar, a lot of steel, a lot of concrete.

On the right side is the eastern portion of that, so a little bit further along.

What's sticking out and to the right of this picture will actually be the pilaster that will support the platform.

So the platform, again, it will be four feet high, so this is them coming out of the ground.

A lot of belts and suspenders and things not going anywhere, right?

So this is really exciting work for us.

So the track offset is fixed and then we have the passenger track music and there's only so much space between the face of the building and that track.

So in order to squish

The platform all the way would be continuous so we didn't want it to have a break in the middle.

We actually had to step it in from 15 feet to 10 feet as we go past the building.

So it's actually a tight squeeze right through there.

It's only in front of the building and we stopped the canopy in that area.

So the canopy actually goes on both sides of the building still steep.

The building, best we can, but again, coming the platform up four feet starts to inhibit kind of the viewshed of the building.

A little bit more narrow through there.

I believe this will be the third high-level platform in Virginia.

I know our chair asked about that conversation before the board meeting.

So it's good to see that progress and we tackle new projects.

We'll always try to get that high level platform, which is good for everyone.

On the left side is the signal bridge going in.

It's actually now installed.

So it's actually a massive structure that's just to the left of the platform or of the building giving the train signal information.

So you can see that on the right is the retaining wall.

So you can see the cellular concrete that flips up in the back.

So this is a T-wall.

We tried to match somewhat to Hokie Stone.

I will not say that, but we didn't take that into consideration.

It's something that was relatively close.

So that's a T-wall.

We do have another wall that's actually a cut wall that will be holding Depot Street.

So that's a different type of wall and you'll see that in the coming months here.

Switching over to Radford.

So a two-track layover there.

So we'll be able to service trains.

This is a facility for Amtrak folks to operate and maintain and take a look at the trains.

We're excited to see the aero trains coming soon, but in the meantime, we have the ability to wire the trains, turn them around just to the east of this.

So here's the train.

The trains will sleep overnight, get serviced.

We'll check the pantograph when the arrows come through.

You can see that the skeleton ice track doesn't have a balance pin again, so it's basically in place.

I told you about many, many light poles.

That's what those little gray dots are, or light poles.

We do have a dimmer switch on the light poles, too, because we don't want it to get lit up like your Christmas tree all night long, so only when Amtrak folks really need it.

So we've tried to take that into consideration as well.

Signal Bridge at Bradford as well going in for our use.

On the right is a lot of conduit, so lots and lots of conduit underground.

You've got to imagine there's, like I said, compressors, there's electrical, there's all sorts of things to plug in and train overnight.

So there's a lot of hidden stuff underground.

There'll be a modular building there as well for the crew to get their orders that's coming.

We're working on foundations for that now.

That was the acquisition that was taking place.

What kind of a fact is that going to have?

There are two answers.

The first one is that we have a high level of confidence through the agreements that we have our larger group so they have to abide by them regardless of whether they're

They merge or not, and that was Mr. Westman's theme because that's the first question we asked, so I was like, no, no, he's not going to talk about this.

So we're going to get turned in, but also Union Pacific has shown that if they are fans of passenger rail, they want to make sure that their network continues to run, but we don't foresee any issues unfold.

I mean, you don't know until you're an adult.

We have that now, you've just got to kind of bound to go with that.

That's DJ's point, if I can.

That's the phrase for Mr. Westman.

When we purchased the mask, he made sure it was a purchase.

Not an easement.

That could be revoked.

It's a purchase.

So that is, that's something that can't be changed by any separate group or anyone else.

He and his team have always been good about it.

Educate us, tell us, try to purchase.

Don't just get an easement or something of that nature.

Exciting stuff.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you to the staff who presented.

That was very helpful, very clear.

It's great to see that video in real time.

Thank you all.

We are going to break for lunch.

Lunch is outside.