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Dominion Energy says stray-voltage study underway after Manassas Park railroad crossing-arm failures
Summary
Dominion Energy presented to the Manassas Park City Council about recurring railroad crossing-arm failures on Manassas Drive, saying a consultant study due next week will guide mitigation work with Norfolk Southern after tests showed simultaneous voltage spikes on rails and transmission lines.
Dominion Energy officials told the Manassas Park City Council that preliminary testing indicates stray voltage on a transmission line that parallels the Norfolk Southern railroad may be linked to repeated crossing-arm failures on Manassas Drive.
Calvin O'Dell, the city's director of community development, said the city and police have tracked crossing-arm problems for years and that Norfolk Southern told staff it had been monitoring a stray-voltage condition for nearly 15 years. "The voltage had spiked, according to Norfolk Southern," O'Dell said, and the spike coincided with a recent increase in transmission-line voltage tied to Dominion's upgrades.
Rob Mason, a transmission operations engineer with Dominion Energy, described joint testing with Norfolk Southern in July and August that captured measurements on rails and power lines at the same time. "Once we have all that and that model is accurate and representative, we're gonna roll immediately into . . . designing [a] mitigation strategy so that we can make sure that whatever is going on with the power lines, that they're not having any adverse effects on the rail crossing," Mason said. He told council the consultant's preliminary engineering study is expected to be completed by the end of next week.
Council members asked whether new data centers are causing the spikes; Mason said the centers increase load flows on the system but "the data centers are not . . . causing this" directly. Council and staff also discussed corridor ownership: the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority was named as the rail corridor owner after Norfolk Southern completes the operational transition, and Norfolk Southern remains the operator that staff has been working with on measurements and testing.
Dominion said it will validate its model with collected test data and then work with consultants and Norfolk Southern to design and implement mitigation measures. The presentation did not include a timeline for mitigation beyond the consultant study and testing next steps.
