Virginia and North Carolina are Home to the Busiest Amtrak Stations in the Southeast

More people are traveling by train with a record number stopping in Virginia and North Carolina. The top five stations in the Southeast in 2023 were the Staples Mill Road Station in Richmond, Va., Alexandria, Va., Charlotte, N.C., Norfolk, Va., and Raleigh, N.C.

Amtrak Virginia, the Virginia state-supported passenger rail service, offers 12 daily trains to the Richmond station for service to Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New York, and Boston. Customers can also access additional Amtrak service for travel to Raleigh, Charlotte, Savannah, Ga., and other cities as far south as Miami.

In North Carolina, the Piedmont and Carolinian services offer daily roundtrips for travel between Raleigh, Charlotte, and points in between. The Piedmont and Carolinian, which travels daily from New York to Charlotte, and stops at the Staples Mill Road Station in Richmond, Va., and Alexandria, Va., are sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and operated by Amtrak.

Plans are underway to expand Amtrak Virginia service through VPRA’s Transforming Rail in Virginia initiative, resulting in two additional roundtrips in 2026 and three in 2030.

-via Press Release

Record Ridership on MTA Commuter Railroads

Governor Kathy Hochul announced record ridership on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority commuter railroads, the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad. The LIRR carried 260,745 riders on Tuesday, May 14, the highest ridership for a single weekday since the pandemic. The ridership record coincided with a Grand Central Madison record – 41 percent of riders traveled to Grand Central Madison on Tuesday, the highest split with Penn Station since the terminal opened for full service last February.