 Ashland, VA | Northeast Regional | Quantico, VA  | Richmond-Staple Mills Road, VA | Carolinian |
| Silver Meteor | Alexandria, VA |
Fredericksburg has been a train station with continuous service since the Amtrak-era. Originally all long-distance trains to Florida stopped at the station, although in the 1990s these trains started bypassing the station. Today all six daily Northeast Regional trains to and from Richmond, Norfolk, or Newport News, plus the Carolinian stop at Fredericksburg, along with the Silver Meteor (albeit discharge only northbound). The Palmetto and Silver Star skip Fredericksburg, running non-stop between Richmond and Alexandria.
The station was the original terminus of the namesake Fredericksburg Line when it began operations on July 20, 1992. The station's location in the Downtown Fredericksburg meant that all trains continued since opening day 7 miles south of the station. These trains deadheading to and from the VRE Crossroads Yard in Olive, an unincorporated community in Spotsylvania County Virginia. Spotsylvania was originally not part of the VRE district but joined in 2009, allowing trains to be extended to the new Spotsylvania Station with an extremely large Park & Ride in 2015. The SubwayNut hasn't visited this station yet because I would be stranded there overnight since VRE operates peak direction service only on the Fredericksburg Line. At some point I hope to visit this station with my bicycle.
The Fredericksburg Station anchors a historic downtown just north of the station and historic district. The city pre-dates the railroad and Revolutionary War being founded in 1728 as a port along the Rappahannock River. The railroad is fully grade-separated on a historic viaduct, along with a historic two-story brick station house that was built in 1910. The historic depot is no longer in passenger use and is now the Alpine Chef, a German restaurant.
For train passengers the station contains two side platforms for the two-track line. The platforms both feel historic and modern at the same time. Platform fencing along the viaduct is historic concrete with an extra little fence on top of the concrete because of modern fencing height regulations. Green canopy structures run along the middle of the platforms with glass windscreens behind them allowing nice views of the historic Fredericksburg houses south of the station. The platform ends are exposed to the elements. The platforms begin as the viaduct crosses over Caroline Street at their northern ends running past the historic station house (that takes up nearly a city block) over Princess Anne Street and ending just beyond Princess Anne Street.
The Track 3 platform is located alongside the station's historic station house. It contains access that begins with a ramp down off the platform to behind the station house. Here a pedestrian tunnel leads under the railroad viaduct, across from a staircase up to Track 3. Public pathways lead to short ramps down along the first level of the station house and down to parallel Lafayette Blvd. Just beyond the SE corner of Lafayette Blvd and Princess Anne Street is a small brick elevator shaft building. This contains an elevator down to the street below. The brickwork looks like it could be original, but cinderblocks were used on the interior when the modern elevator shaft was installed.
This little brick shaft arrives at a covered area at street level with little glass windows above the doorways. One says “To Trains”, the other “Passenger Waiting Area”. The only amenity in this street level passenger waiting area is a water fountain, no bench!
The Track 2 side of the station is where nearly all the station's parking is. Parking is free for commuters at the station. For a station in a city center of 40,000 Fredericksburg has a surprising amount of parking with approximately 810 parking spaces. This was probably caused by the station being the southern endpoint station since Spotsylvania didn't open for 23 years after this station was opened. In my view with all the nearby urbanism, ideally this station would have parking with the parking lots redeveloped, with passengers wanting to Park & Ride directed to nearby Spotsylvania or Leeland Road that are both are more suburban/rural stations with large parking lots.
This platform begins with an exposed staircase at the extreme eastern (northbound) end of the platform. This leads down to a 107 space parking lot nestled between the tracks and Caroline and Sophia Streets. This parking lot is reserved for City of Fredericksburg residents. Another small 23 space parking lot (no residency requirements) is on the opposite side of the tracks between Caroline, Sophia Streets, and Lafayette Blvd.
Next there is the core canopied part of the platform. A small alcove off the platform leads to a short bridge to a glass elevator in a concrete shaft down to Caroline Street. Where this elevator begins a ramp also begins that leads down to the main pedestrian tunnel connecting the two platforms, a staircase leads up to the platform across from this tunnel entrance. These all lead out to a plaza along a one-way driveway that runs below the platform connecting Princess Anne Streets to Caroline Streets. This driveway serves as the station's Kiss & Ride and also contains 13 ADA only parking spaces.
The Track 2 platform has one staircase down at its western (railway southern) end. This staircase provides access to most of the station's parking. There is first a small 17 space parking lot reserved for cars and commuters living in VRE member jurisdictions only. Beyond this, accessed by walking down Frederick Street and crossing Charles Street is first a small parking lot with 30 designated parking spaces shared with a church. Next, after Frederick Street curves and becomes Prince Edward Street is the start of the VRE external lot. This lot is massive and a good quarter-mile walk from just the staircase up to the rail platform. The paved portion of the lot has 250 parking spaces, with an additional 215 parking spaces in a gravel lot beyond the paved portion of the parking lot.
Current station signage at Fredericksburg is modern VRE signage with white text on a red background, Amtrak is acknowledged by the directional arrows beneath the station's name reading to Washington DC, or Spotsylvania ◆ Richmond. Amtrak stopping at the station is only acknowledged at street level with a couple of silver Amtrak station information panels with 3 panels of now useless information (since Amtrak stopped publishing printed train schedules) under the blue text on grey Fredericksburg, VA text. When I passed through the station in 2014 the station had a mixture of the original (and hard to read) VRE station signs with Fredericksburg written in a Times New Roman Font on a red background with white and blue boarders. Other platform signage was a non-standard Fredericksburg in Green followed by the Track Number and Washington ↔. Richmond.
The platform does have a neat sign facing the street that says “Historic Fredericksburg” between the logos of CSX, the RF&P, VRE, Amtrak, the City of Fredericksburg, and the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.
Photo 1: July 15, 2014; 2-97: September 5, 2024;
