Or just do a push pull by finding a cab car from somewhere. Saves a lot of time and headache. Operate it like the Keystones for the afternoon turn. Just flip a few seats around to go the other way. Even cheaper than a Wye, which by the way is presumably already there anyway, where the Richmond sets are turned.
OK, now having looked at the Richmond schedule, I feel like a complete doofus. It appears to be a net source for scheduled trains, or some kind of time-warp discontinuity. It appears that twelve trains per week arrive there (195 (2), 93 (4), 87 (1), 85 (5)), but thirteen trains per week depart from there (86 (5), 164 (2), 174 (5), 82 (1)). NPN is the opposite: fifteen scheduled trains arrive there, but only fourteen depart per week.
It would appear that each Friday night, a train (either 83 or 95) runs empty from Newport News to Richmond to become Saturday morning's 164 or 82 north from Richmond. Weird. Does anyone know why Amtrak would choose to run empty trains around on a regular basis?
Seems surprising to me that they don't have a better use for their rolling stock than this.
Regarding the wye at Richmond, I couldn't find it on the google. It could of course be very far away from the station, since the trains have all night long to reverse direction. In principle, they would have plenty of time to use the wye at either Newport News or Norfolk...
Ainamkartma