Richmond's Main Street Station in the downtown area was built in 1901 by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL) and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O).

The ornate Main Street Station was designed by the Philadelphia firm of Wilson, Harris, and Richards in the Second Renaissance Revival style.

The C&O maintained offices in the upper floors, and its passenger service continued at Main Street Station until Amtrak took over in 1971.

The completion of a bypass around Acca Yard in March 2019 was a step in this direction, although the first additional service that it enabled—a second Northeast Regional round trip to Norfolk—did not serve Main Street Station.

[15] On September 27, 2021, two Amtrak trains—one northbound in the morning and the other southbound in the evening—were extended from Staples Mill to Main Street Station as the first part of Virginia's multi-billion dollar rail expansion program.

Since first established in 1992, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has since extended the corridor to Atlanta and Macon, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama.