Did they? This site was purchased in 2009, but it’s a 20+ minute walk to downtown (i.e., the courthouse). inferior to either (a) the original station location that NCRR owns (now just a gravel parking lot at Eno and Calvin), which is a 15-minute walk; or (b) the house NW across the tracks, which is just a 10-minute walk.
Not to mention the excessive distances between just the platform and the station, which others have pointed out. The entire 5-minute walk shed doesn’t even get you out to the (minor) road in front! The bus stop is further from the train than ANY of the parking lot! I get that the town plans future TOD on the blocks in front of the station, but… it’s not a great location for much of anything except residential. It’ll require long bus detours. Intercity trains themselves don’t create enough of a customer base for retailers, who also won’t choose locations hidden four blocks and two turns off a main street.
My quip about funding was half in jest. Transit projects these days are often laden with a kitchen sink’s worth of other asks… and then we wonder why they’re so expensive, and therefore why we get so few of them.