Dear Chris,

Thank you for your continued correspondence and all of your suggestions.

We have briefed our conductors on the new bicycle policy. As with any new
program, it will take some adjustment time for the conductors and other
passengers who are not utilizing their bicycles. We will continue to advertise
the program through various forms of communication via conductor and platform
announcements as well as Train Talk messages and on-board newsletters. Your
suggestion to work with tourism programs that may want to publicize the
advantages of a train trip in conjunction with their bicycles has been forwarded
to the appropriate staff member. However, since we are under constant pressure
to trim the budget, we cannot offer additional service on the weekends.

As far as the more progressive Caltrain bike policy, there is more demand from
the riders, longer routes, and more cars in their fleet to accommodate bicycles.
At one time, VRE used to offer café cars where riders could buy small snacks and
drinks and that car could also be used to store multiple full-size bicycles.
The amenities sold were not enough to keep the cars in service and were also
underutilized for bike storage. These cars were eventually phased out in order
to provide more seats on the trains because our ridership was (and still is)
growing. If we get to a point where the demand for on-board bicycles is high
enough, we will amend the policy to allow more bicycles on the train.

We hope this clarifies our position.

Thanks for riding VRE.


Regards,

Jeremy Flores
Operations Service Manager
Virginia Railway Express