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Trains traveling between Richmond’s Staples Mill and Main Street stations will be a bit faster thanks to a new track bypassing a notorious 2-mile bottleneck.

Virginia’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation on Monday announced the completion of a $132 million project that included improvements to the CSX-owned Acca Yard and upgrades installed around the Richmond region while celebrating the debut of expanded Amtrak train service in Norfolk.

Built by the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad in the 1890s, the Acca Yard is wedged between interstates 195 and 64, stretching from Dumbarton Road to Westwood Avenue in Henrico County.

In the past decade, the rail yard has often delayed passenger trains by 20 to 30 minutes because they must slow to a crawl to pass through safely.

“That has long been recognized as a bottleneck,” DRPT Director Jennifer Mitchell said in an interview.

State officials decided a bypass was needed there to better accommodate the growing passenger train service throughout the state after another improvement project was completed at the Acca Yard in 2009, Mitchell said.