NORTH TERMINAL MIDDAY STORAGE SITE INVESTIGATIONS May 23, 2016 Virginia Railway Express North Terminal Midday Storage Site Investigations This page intentionally left blank Virginia Railway Express North Terminal Midday Storage Site Investigations EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) are collaborating on the master planning effort for train storage and maintenance at Amtrak’s Ivy City terminal facility. An early determination of that effort was that the forecasted demand for train storage and maintenance functions within the existing facility on the west side of the Northeast Corridor exceeds available space. Amtrak recommended that VRE consider relocating its midday storage function to vacant Amtrak property on the west side of the Northeast Corridor as: 1. Relocating Amtrak train storage to that location would separate its trains from Amtrak’s maintenance facilities; 2. VRE does not perform any significant maintenance function on its trains during midday storage; and 3. Locating VRE train storage on the east side of the Northeast Corridor would reduce present operating conflicts through C and K interlockings. Recent changes in the Amtrak-VRE Operating Agreement empower Amtrak to start reducing VRE storage in the present Ivy City facility beginning in July 2018. VRE engaged AECOM to investigate other potential sites in the vicinity of Washington DC to locate possible sites for new train locomotive and rail car midday storage yards for VRE trains. New storage locations are required due to limited capacities in the near future at the present storage locations. The site should be capable of housing up to twenty VRE 10-car passenger trains (or a total of 174 units) during the primary middle hours of the weekday. These trains arrive with passengers to Washington Union Station (WUS) from Fredericksburg and Manassas in the morning and are idle until mid to late afternoon. AECOM identified and evaluated twenty sites inside a twelve mile radius from Washington Union Station. Only sites with a close proximity of existing rail lines connecting to WUS were chosen for the study. Of those sites, each was preliminarily evaluated for fatal flaws that would discount it as a candidate, such as being located in park land or prohibited distances from workable track corridors. An initial nine sites passed fatal flaw tests and were determined candidates worthy of further study. For these, this report contains site parcel maps showing geospatial features for each site. An evaluation table weighing characteristic features of each initially selected site was developed to score the sites and select four final sites for detailed study. Conceptual storage yard designs for the final four sites are also provided in this report. An abbreviated version of the Site Scorecard Table is shown below with scores for the final nine sites in the study. For each of the evaluation criteria, a rating from 0 to 4 was assigned, plus a weighting factor was applied for each category after consulting with VRE staff. The highest scoring sites are given preference for consideration. (“Site H” is the existing Amtrak property on the east side of the Northeast Corridor recommended in the Master Plan for VRE midday storage, supplemented with District and private properties). ES-1 Virginia Railway Express North Terminal Midday Storage Site Investigations W E I G H T E D S I T E S C O R E S C E G H L N P S T Size and Configuration 9 3 3 9 9 6 6 6 9 Access (Rail and Roadway) 6 6 0 9 6 6 6 6 6 Operational Efficiency 6 6 3 9 6 6 6 6 6 Land Use Compatability 4 6 6 6 6 4 6 6 6 Community Impacts 9 9 6 6 9 6 9 9 9 Natural Environmental Impacts 4 6 2 4 6 2 6 2 6 Site Topography 1 1 1 1 3 1 3 2 3 Property Cost Estimates 6 6 6 4 4 4 4 0 0 Railroad/Publicly Available Land 6 3 6 9 3 3 6 3 3 51 46 33 57 52 38 52 40 48 Table ES-1 Site Scorecard Table The full report contains a description of the project and existing conditions, the study method, conclusions, and appendices with site datasheets and site drawings. Virginia Railway Express North Terminal Midday Storage Site Investigations TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary ES-1 Table of Contents Introduction and Report 1 Appendix A: Site Datasheets Appendix B: Real Estate Comparable Land Values Appendix C: Wedge Yard Easement Agreement Appendix D: Washington DC Regional Study Site Location Maps Appendix E: Sites Identified but Disqualified from full Study Evaluation Appendix F: Washington DC Regional Parcel Layouts Appendix F: Storage Yard Conceptual Layouts Virginia Railway Express North Terminal Midday Storage Site Investigations This page intentionally left blank Virginia Railway Express North Terminal Midday Storage Site Investigations 1. INTRODUCTION The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) are collaborating on the master planning effort for train storage and maintenance at Amtrak’s Ivy City terminal facility. An early determination of that effort was that the forecasted demand for train storage and maintenance functions within the existing facility on the west side of the Northeast Corridor exceeds available space. Amtrak recommended that VRE consider relocating its midday storage function to vacant Amtrak property on the west side of the Northeast Corridor as: • Relocating Amtrak train storage to that location would separate its trains from Amtrak’s maintenance facilities; • VRE does not perform any significant maintenance function on its trains during midday storage; and • Locating VRE train storage on the east side of the Northeast Corridor would reduce present operating conflicts through C and K interlockings. Recent changes in the Amtrak-VRE Operating Agreement empower Amtrak to start reducing VRE storage in the present Ivy City facility beginning in July 2018. VRE engaged AECOM investigate the Washington DC metropolitan region to identify feasible locations for new midday locomotive and passenger railcar storage facilities. The facilities should provide storage for twenty 10-Car commuter trains arriving in Washington DC from two VRE lines originating in Fredericksburg and Manassas each weekday morning. A minimum target was a storage capacity of 174 total units; recognizing the fact that some sites may not accommodate the full-length trains. These trains are idle between the morning and afternoon peak periods before returning in the late afternoon with daily passengers. The goal is to identify suitable locations that warrant further in-depth study regarding characteristics important to VRE operations. 2. EXISTING CONDITIONS VRE operates diesel trains providing daily commuter service from as far as Manassas to the west and Fredericksburg to the south into Washington Union Station (WUS). During the day, those trains require storage clear of the mainline, so VRE currently stores trains in Amtrak’s Ivy City Complex and at other sites. Future VRE ridership increases and new Amtrak space pressures at Ivy City compel VRE to look for new locations for their midday passenger train storage. Storage of trains at sites distant from Washington Union Station requires the deadheading of trains to and from the station. Each time VRE moves trains they use scheduled train moving slots contracted with railroad owners and VRE prefers to reserve those moving slots for revenue earning trains rather than empty trains. These contextual conditions were kept in mind during the investigations to find midday storage yard locations. 3. SITE LOCATION INVESTIGATION STUDY METHOD The following methods were implemented to provide an inventory of potential sites for midday passenger train storage sites in the DC area. The Virginia Railway Express Request for Proposal provided some of the initial criteria utilized by the study. Geographic Information System (GIS) filtering was used to select for the following: • Sites on primary railroads entering and leaving Washington Union Station • Sites within a 12 mile radius of WUS – as required by the RFP • Contiguous parcels larger than 20 acres – determined by initial yard size analysis • Sites within one mile of each side of the railroads limiting possible spur distances 1 Virginia Railway Express North Terminal Midday Storage Site Investigations These filtering queries provided limited feasible sites. Small parcels combinations were being excluded from results. Some sites meeting criteria lacked good access to railroads. The study team utilized Google Earth to visually comb the railroad alignments for sites being excluded by the automated filtering but meeting storage yard requirements. Conceptual yard designs indicate that depending on site conditions as much as 45 acres could be required for a storage yard. After evaluating search parameters, the following criteria were used to improve site selections: • Include adjacent parcels that could be combined into group purchases • Include available underutilized parcels overlooked by automated database queries • Exclude parcels not immediately adjacent to railroad alignments • Increase yard size requirement to 35 acres or more depending on site condition Please refer to Appendix D for the Montgomery and Prince George’s County, Maryland and Washington DC Potential Yard Candidate Location Map and the adjoining Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax County Map outlining in yellow highlight twenty site locations in the initial study. Of the initial twenty sites, nine sites meeting criteria were selected for further study. Site characteristics for these sites were catalogued into datasheets provided in Appendix A. Appendix E provides rationale for removing properties not included in the final list. Detailed site parcel maps for the sites in the final study are provided in Appendix F. The Site Datasheets provide various criteria for each site utilized for detailed evaluations. Included in the criteria are estimates of property value ranges. The estimates are from results from county and state database searches, real estate comparables analysis and public record easement searches provided by the AECOM real estate specialists assigned to the study team.