It is well short of the $60 million the Virginia Railway Express needs to replace its old fleet of locomotives, but the federal government doling out $9.8 million in stimulus money to the VRE is still much-welcomed cash for the train company.

"The only thing VRE requested funding for was locomotive and that's what we got funding for," said VRE deputy CEO Jennifer Straub last week as she discussed how the company benefited from the federal stimulus.

New locomotives will improve on-time performance of the trains and reduce maintenance demands, according to Straub.

"When the locomotives break down, obviously we incur delays," she said,

Straub is still waiting for the state to deliver cash of its own for VRE to buy new locomotives. However, one of the benefits of the federal stimulus regarding VRE funding is localities did not have to match it.

"[That] allowed cash-strapped jurisdictions around the country to use it, and that was huge," said Straub.

In Prince William County, money coming in for other transportation packages is "going to be a drop in the bucket," according to Board of County Supervisors chairman Corey Stewart (R), saying PWC will "probably receive about $8 million through NVTA (Northern Virginia Transportation Authority) as a result of the stimulus package."

As for the VRE, its board of directors approved of the purchase for nine locomotives on March 20 and money will be supplied completely from governments at the local, state and federal level.

"No passenger fare goes into [the] purchase of capital," said Straub.

She also mentioned "parking expansions are not something VRE funds out of its pocket" as that is the responsibility of the jurisdictions where there are VRE stations.

The closest stations for western Prince William County commuters are at Broad Run (near the Manassas airport), Old Town Manassas and Manassas Park. Talks and studies have been undergoing for the last couple of years about expanding VRE out to Gainesville and Haymarket as parking at the Broad Run station is above capacity.

"If we were to get some grant money, we would probably be working to get the environmental and preliminary engineering done," said Straub about expanding parking at Broad Run.

Stewart claimed the top rail priority for Prince William is the westward expansion of VRE rather than, say, bringing in Metro to a place like Potomac Mills.

"The reality is Metro is just a pipedream. It's not in the cards and it's too expensive.

It would take 20 and 30 years to get it extended to Potomac Mills," said Stewart.

He added that the county would like to tie future residential developments around existing and new VRE stations "and we will also try over the course of the next several years to try to obtain proffer contributions from developers fro the construction for new VRE infrastructure including new stations."

Officials are working on changing the long-term land-use plan county currently and one of the goals will be an "attempt to concentrate development around the VRE stations," said Stewart.

As for other stimulus dollars coming into Prince William, Stewart said, "Well, of course we're going to accept the money. It's disappointing that transportation projects received such a small share of the stimulus package."