I can’t tell if this is proposed final build out or initial start of service. My problem with the commuter rail before was the lack of trips, even under the 8-2-8-2 round trips per day, that it didn’t really sound like they wanted to build. I’m fine with this as an initial start of service, some of these corridors need some serious rebuilding before they could even start to operate service and many of them require PTC and CTC before we should really be operating passenger service. I would be seriously angry if this is the proposed final build out of all operators on these corridors.
I love this as a strategy. This can turn into a game of chicken as to who might pay for a specific project, like does NCDOT pay for something or GoTriangle, or a regional municipality, but I really like the idea of focusing on slow boring projects that will eventually open the door to slam dunk big projects. If we can get NCRR, NCDOT or some entity to double track (or triple🥺) the main from RTP through Durham, I think that would free our hand a lot regarding further expansion. I think we could justify that on Piedmont expansion, not just Commuter Rail.
Yet more I don’t get why GoTriangle doesn’t partner with NCDOT for the existing Piedmont? I feel like GoTriangle really wants to market a rail service, why not put Umo readers on the platform and say from Raleigh to Durham, pay for the Piedmont with your GoTriangle Umo Card!
The Carolinian and the Piedmonts are operated by Amtrak, and Amtrak’s ticketing system is used. It’s more like an airline ticket system than a transit ticket system. (Historically it was derived from an airline ticket system.) AFAIK there is no portal between Umo or any similar system and Amtrak.
Amtrak and Sound Transit (of Seattle) have a partnership under the RailPlus program. Where people can use their ORCA Card (similar to our Umo) in order to buy a ticket under Sound Transits fare structure valid on some Amtrak Cascades Trains at some Sound Transit Ticket Vending Machines.
I would love to see this replicated throughout Amtrak corridor services.
There are some gotchas. It’s not paperless (the system prints a paper ticket for Amtrak), it works only if you have a monthly pass on the ORCA card, and there’s no way to know if the Amtrak train is sold out – in which case you get to stand somewhere. There’s a temporary operation at the moment that allows a passenger simply to show an ORCA card to an Amtrak conductor, but that’s related to Amtrak’s own delays in maintaining the Sounder equipment which has led to many cancellations.
It’s been in effect for over 20 years, since 2004, I don’t think it’s temporary. I also think I’d be willing to stand for a trip from Raleigh to Durham, with how quick it is on the Piedmont.
I would love if they made it permanent and there has been people advocating that expansion for a while to their south corridor but it’s been available on their north corridor for 20 years. I would love to see GoTriangle do something similar for Raleigh to Durham.
Amtrak multi-ride passes are great but they still require foresight that a RailPlus ticketing system does not. They still don’t promote the seamless use of transit in the Triangle.
Is the idea that we support/expand the Piedmont service, or would there be new triangle branded or something trains? I am just not clear/informed in this.
I don’t think they know, yet - and answering that question is not really what’s important, right now.
I think the point of this study is to figure out what services are actually necessary and reasonable - and what infrastructure work would be required, first. The infrastructure work comes first since, like @core2idiot said, the key reason GoTriangle dropped the idea for commuter rail is because the additional need for new tracks, bridges etc. made it far too expensive at the time.
It seems to me like TWTPO et al. only care about the service concepts to the extent that it would help NCDOT know how many passenger trains would run on specific stretches of tracks per day. This, in turn, would make it easier to name and prioritize the kinds of improvements that need to be made to train tracks throughout the Triangle. That’s the point you have to get to before we can switch from asking questions about physical engineering needs to questions about the business and logistics of running trains.
EDIT: to Eddy and @ctillnc’s questions about train service, another helpful example could be CT Rail, the regional/commuter rail service throughout Connecticut and parts of Massachusetts. The CT Rail brand is used for every ticket, vehicle etc., but one of its two services is actually operated by Amtrak. That could be another possible model for the Triangle, too, maybe?
Call me crazy, but I think a possible next step could be a rail improvement project between Raleigh and Durham.
I hope everyone can agree that true high-speed rail between Raleigh and Charlotte is the ultimate goal, and in order to get there, I think a segmented approach might work.
What if local, state, and federal dollars went towards improving the Raleigh to Durham segment of the line?
As far as I know, there has never been a serious study of high-speed rail between Raleigh and Charlotte. The most aggressive concept was 90 mph. (Most people consider “high speed” to begin at 110 or 150 mph). 90 mph would have supported Governor Hunt’s original vision of two hours flat between Raleigh and Charlotte, but no one talks about that anymore. I believe the contract between NS and NCRR would require 90 mph on separate tracks within the NCRR ROW. That’s expensive because of the number of bridges and road crossings that would have to be rebuilt. Getting the curvy NCRR ROW straight enough for sustained running at 110 mph or higher would be horrendously expensive. The reason why some of the Raleigh-Petersburg SEHSR route can be considered for 110 mph is that the line passes through thinly populated southern Virginia where the costs of acquiring new ROW would be manageable.
This hasn’t been uncommon historically. Coaster out of San Diego also did something similar until 2005 but I don’t know if this is a business Amtrak likes being in and how much profit they want from it. Now most commuter rail systems are operated by subsidiaries of the European National Railway companies (Keolis is 70% owned by SNCF), Herzog which appears independent or by the freight railway who owns the tracks (Metra, Tri-Met, and Sound Transit do this). I don’t have a problem with contracting with Amtrak, assuming they give us a good deal, but I think that’s a decision that comes much later than we are now.
Again: this is exactly what we’re trying to do. Look again at the study I mentioned several posts ago, and you’ll see that most of the rail segments that the state wants to look into are either a part of the S-Line, in the Raleigh-Durham corridor, or both. I feel like the Durham-Cary-Raleigh corridors will end up in the front of the line for future investments, but we need to prove that that makes sense.
Also, note that this is just the first of many steps that will collect data, evidence, and arguments in favor of doing that. It might just sound like a technical thought exercise that’s internal to our region - but state and federal governments require us to have exactly these sorts of plans in place before they can take a grant application seriously. The feds, in particular, won’t give out grant money until state and local governments allocate their share of money first - so there’s also that.
90mph, at least, is still in our crosshairs. North Carolina won federal grants back in 2023 for the first steps of improving or creating seven new corridors for trains running between 79 and 125 mph. Two of these corridors overlap with big chunks of the Charlotte-Raleigh route - so at the very least, I think that gives us two distinct ways to push for getting grade separations beyond what we got ten years ago.
Well, the NCRR is 173 miles from Raleigh to Charlotte and it will be 2 miles longer when the Charlotte Gateway station is built. (I’m an optimist). Let’s suppose you want two hours flat, with only one station stop (10 minutes, including turnout traversal, deceleration, and acceleration) in Greensboro, and allow for 2 minutes of turnout traversal and deceleration or acceleration at the endpoints. That gives you 104 minutes to cover 175 miles, which is an average of 101 mph. Clearly 90 mph isn’t going to get there, and neither would a top speed of 110. Then there’s the question of electrification at 120+ because you’re at the limit of diesel-electric locomotive performance if you also expect a reasonable acceleration rate from them.
That’s why I am not optimistic about ever achieving 2 hours flat. And, given NCDOT’s propensity to have multiple station stops, 2 hours flat would be even more difficult. On the other hand, I believe 2 hours 30 minutes is achievable if enough 90 mph running can be carved out and NCDOT is willing to run trains that don’t stop at every station. They’re already doing some of that now. In short, 2 hours 30 minutes is good enough to get people off I-85 and might be affordable.
Two hours flat would be possible if they built an entirely new line direct from Raleigh to Charlotte, similar to the original Norfolk Southern Railway line. But it passes through thinly populated territory and the economics would depend solely on travel between Raleigh and Charlotte.
I think run times of at or near 2 hours are possible mostly on the current corridor with some moderate curve straightenings and a few multi-mile realignments, but you do probably need to electrify the whole corridor and build significant stretches of dedicated 3rd track rated for passenger service at 125 mph (class 7). It feels like a big lift for the US and NC, but this is the sort of work that European countries do in their sleep.
Breaking 2 hours by any significant margin would require an entirely new greenfield corridor and a higher-still level of investment. A world-class high speed line could do it in about 1:10.
Just to be clear, I think getting trains to run around 2 hours between Raleigh and Charlotte makes trains competitive enough with driving (and to @orulz’s point, that should be doable with the current corridor).
Electrification and/or third tracks for passenger service (especially near stations, if we want high-platform boarding like in RUS instead of low-platform ones like in most of the corridor) would likely be the hard part.
I imagine the amount of land you need to buy (and the number of homes, businesses etc. you’d need to displace) to get the appropriate right-of-way would shock even Robert Moses, though (if you know, you know). I think it’d be worth looking into, but we all know the current political climate would never let that happen.
There would be a lot of property needed, but avoiding property acquisition in suburban and urban areas could help. To lessen the costs I would recommend sticking to the existing corridors in urban areas as much as possible.
Of course this wouldn’t go over too well in those rural areas, and would have to be seen as a political priority. It would need to be well managed to avoid some of the pitfalls faced by the California project.
When I drew up a hypothetical alignment, I wound up sticking to the S-line from Raleigh through New Hill, and NCRR from Charlotte through Concord. There’s a station at the NC Zoo and a pair of tunnels in the hilly area near Asheboro. Of course this is just hypothetical, a real alignment would probably not look much like this - please read it as nothing more than an order-of-magnitude estimate of what it would take.
I was thinking about this idea as I was replying to you!
I was hesitant to mention it, though, since I feel like the idea of bypassing Greensboro would be an ever harder sell now than when you first suggested this), especially with how there’s so much more manufacturing jobs there, now. Maybe you could find a decent compromise by putting together bits and pieces of your other suggestion for using power line easements and highway medians, though those ideas would have their own construction challenges.
Either way, I’d be happy with any upgrade to the Raleigh-Charlotte rail corridor as long as they:
Help trains run faster and more reliably, especially if level boarding, more grade separation, and electrification are on the table.
Interestingly, the same grants that we got for possible regional rail corridors across North Carolina also made it so that we are in charge of the immediate next steps for the Atlanta HSR, too!
