This letter was written by TDX board member, Farnham Jarrard, and mailed to Governor Kaine in December, 2006.
Dear Governor Kaine:
My name is Famham Jarrard, Jr. I currently am Mayor of Bristol, Virginia. …I have been involved in the effort to have Train Service since creation of the effort to create TDX. The number of trips I have made to go to meetings in Lynchburg, VA, or wherever we were asked to go over the past decade is not possible for me to remember.
After your victory my wife and I met you and your wife…. I do not expect you to remember me. But I feel that I must make this appeal. TDX is long overdue. We in Southwest Virginia are at a cross roads. It is a way of opening our State to a means of travel that frankly made Bristol originally, and which will open Southwest Virginia to opportunities that one can only imagine, not to mention its impact on the total length of this great State. The payback of this effort may take five or ten or even twenty years, but to create a passenger rail transportation system across our long State is long overdue.
I attended a TDX meeting in Lynchburg, VA on November 30th and we are planning what I would call, unfortunately, what maybe our final effort. I must ask you to make it known that you expect your current government to work with our staff in Lynchburg and help us develop our last effort in the form of creating a Commission setting forth the requirements needed to launch the TDX effort. This Commission will need first total support by you and your staff, second sufficient funding for making this commission a viable effort, and lastly must be high on your list and not fall through the cracks.
This is not just a Southwest Virginia project this is a State program that will help all along the line from Richmond to Bristol. I know you are a young and dynamic and I am reaching the end of the line, but railroads can move thousands of people and lessen the cost of travel for first thousands of college students along this line, and secondly, with families that would like to see Richmond and Washington DC.
It will some day connect with rail in Tennessee and will go north as far as Richmond, VA and Washington, DC. That means it will open up the opportunity to make connections and use rail travel on the eastern seaboard.
You are not rolling the dice, you are creating an alternate means of travel; one that made America what it is, rail service. I know that the Norfolk and Southern Corporation moves thousands of tons of coal and more thousands of tons of freight in piggy backing trucks that are offloaded in their yards and reach their final destination by truck. Without their support I do not feel that this will happen. We are led to believe that they do not oppose this effort; however, we need their open support. You are the only one who can make that happen.
In closing I want you to know that I see this as an important link in moving Virginia into this new century and giving an edge to our State by demonstrating what rail service can do. This ball is in your court and it will either happen or not happen based on how real your effort is on making it happen. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely yours,
C. Farnham Jarrard, Jr.,
Mayor Bristol, VA