Lorton is a VRE that opened as an infill station in January 1995. Amtrak's Auto Train's northern terminus is in Lorton, with this facility a mile south of the Lorton VRE station. I walked between the two station (after walking into the Auto Train station to get some photos). This is not a walk I recommend. Google shows some paths through woods between the two stations but these are inaccurate and blocked by fences, requiring me to stop trying to walk through the woods and instead walk down the sidewalk of nearby stroads. The platform was extended north (including a parking lot extension) to accomidate 8 car trains with a ribbon cutting on March 8, 2018
Since the station opened a large mixed-use development has opened between the edge of the station's parking lot and Lorton Station Blvd called fittingly Lorton Station Town Center. It has a mixture of apartment buildings, retail and restaurants, plus small medical offices. The Center of the development includes a caboose on display.
The station has a single side platform located at basically the same level as the station parking lot. There is a 60-foot-wide grassy drainage area that divides the platform from the station's approximately 560 space parking lot. This means the platform only has two entrances via sidewalks from the parking lot to the single platform on the west side of the two-track train line. These entrance sidewalks both arrive at the platform in the middle of a once car long canopy structure.
The southern entrance is the "main one" and originally the only entrance with a slightly wider entrance area containing the station's TVMs. This entrance also connects to three sawtoothed bus bays. These bus bays have all day and weekend Fairfax Connector bus routes that connect the station to the Washington Metro at Franconia-Springfield or Huntington stations. The station is also the first or last stop of Vamoose Buses to New York City (that also stop at Bethesda, Maryland and Arlington, Virginia at Rosslyn).
Photos 1-58: September 6, 2024;
