Cary does better than Durham in passengers…
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But how many of the Cary passengers can just as easily use a Morrisville stop instead?
Who really knows but I am sure it would require significant analysis to figure it.
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The question is also, ‘How many Amtrak riders boarding/exiting at Cary/CYN are actually from Raleigh?’ (Because of CYN’s free parking.)
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The Cary station works because both Charlotte-bound and Florida-bound trains can use it. Only Charlotte-bound trains would be able to use a Morrisville station.
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True, is why I suggested the possibility of shifting most of the Cary service to a proposed Morrisville station, keeping the Silver Star service as is. If only the Silver Star stopped in downtown Cary, the boardings would likely be on par with Southern Pines (6925) at the very least.
I doubt Amtrak would do that, if only because of the redundancy of staff they’d need at both stations.
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An interesting corollary would be whether Amtrak would consider adding Thruway bus service from RDU to RUS/RGH. Probably not, considering that it duplicates a municipal service already in place. But, it’s a thought.
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The Cary stop allows NB Silver Star riders to transfer to the 10 AM Charlotte-bound Piedmont route. That transition would have to take place in Raleigh and if the Silver Star is late coming up from Florida (which is all the time), it could result in a lot of missed transfers with only a 1-hour transfer window instead of 2 hours.
I was taking the 10 AM train from Raleigh to Durham once and it had to get held at Cary because the Silver Star had just pulled into Cary nearly 2 hours late and passengers needed to make that transfer.
(In the last month, the Silver Star has been 39 min late on average coming northbound into Cary)
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Just got email back from RDU. It’s official: Bus-at-the-Curb.
I must have missed something… explain?
For RDU Vision 2040: No fancy bus tunnel. No set aside for rail. No automated people mover. Business as usual for mass transit. Buses at the curb.
All the money will go for a new runway (5L/23R), the terminal expansions, CONRAC, commercial aviation upgrades, and roads.
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Ah, gotcha. Found your comment in the Future of Transit thread as well; that helped with context. Thank you!
Please help my memory, were the numbers inflated for Cary due to Raleigh being under construction at the time? Bad memory on my part… 
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To the best of my knowledge the construction of the new station had almost no impact on the old station as they are two different sites. But somebody else might be able to better answer your question. The new station did open in July of 2018.
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Source: Amtrak
Though to be fair, Cary does have the Silver Star route while Durham doesn’t so that’s one more pair of train trips a day. There are always tons of people getting on/off at Durham whenever I take the train there
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Cary’s Mayor Weinbrecht has posted a blog entry » Blog Archive » February 23, 2020 in which he mentions the Multimodal Transportation Hub Study. This is a study where Cary is basically trying to figure out where and how to relocate their train station.
He says that the town has picked the block bounded by NCRR on the north, CSX on the south, Harrison on the east, and West on the west, which was a bit of a shocker, given that there hasn’t been a drop of public input as far as I’m aware. Nevertheless, this is on the right track, in my opinion, in that this land is definitely needed to improve the Cary Station area, but I hope they pursue something a bit more ambitious then just building a new station there and calling it a day…
Specifically, I’d like to see them take it a bit further and “pinch” the CSX and NS/NCRR tracks together through the station area, and place them in a trench.
Since I’m me and I’m procrastinating something else, here’s a go at figuring out how this would work.
The current conditions through Cary are that, headed east to west, the tracks are essentially flat at 496’ elevation from Trinity to Academy, and from there they begin a 3.6 mile (19000’) long downhill grade to the bridge over Crabtree Creek, dropping 190 ft vertically to roughly 306’ elevation - a grade of exactly 1%. By Harrison Avenue the tracks are at about 490’.
If you assume that the bridge at Durham Street is not going to be rebuilt, and start the 1% westbound downhill grade there instead of at Academy, and continue that downhill grade for 1600’ (This is a spot between Walker and Academy) and then flatten out for the platforms, you wind up with tracks at 482’. This is 14’ below the current level of Academy, meaning you’d have to raise Academy by about 16’ to clear the tracks, and 8’ below Harrison, meaning rasing Harrison by 22’.
One of the reasons the town originally abandoned the idea of a Harrison Avenue grade separation was how obtrusive it would be without even crossing over the CSX. But here, you gain a CSX crossing, and the impacts are actually less than you would think. Raising Academy by 16’ and Harrison by 22’ Harrison would actually seem like less than that, because the surface of the bridges would be at 512’, while the intersections of Harrison/Chatham and Academy/Chatham are both at 502’, so the bridges would actually seem to rise only 10’ from Chatham - and this would seem neither high nor steep approaching from Chatham Street, given there would be 300’ to rise that 10’ at Harrison and 250’ to do so at Academy. This would look very similar to how Morgan Street looks, headed westbound from West Street to the bridge over the RR tracks: it rises 10’ in about 260’. NBD.
Anyway, I really like to go off the deep end on these things so I hope you guys are able to follow. Here is a diagram showing how this could work, accounting for NCRR’s rather draconian demand that all construction account for six main tracks between Raleigh and Cary.
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Thank you so very much for the update, attached Google map and link!
Awesome job as always! 
A question that I couldn’t find the direct answer too as of yet is, are they talking of moving the existing train building or is this a demo project waiting to happen?
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I am not sure. The google maps drawing is my own personal fabrication, and would definitely involve demolishing the station building. But so far the only mention is the Mayor’s blog and basically saying they plan on doing… something… related to the station across Harrison Avenue from where it is today.
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