The new one is the Charlotte Gateway Station, a short walk away from the Panthers’ stadium.
That’s because Axios is literally designed around that writing style, where they write short articles that are easy to digest for people who have like 5-millisecond attention spans. The way that every Axios article is < 300 words, full of bullet points, and oversimplified is a feature, not a bug.
Yeah I knew that, but I also think it makes it worse.
Zoom in: we’ve got the hottest tea on developments that will make you go cray-cray.
Why it matters: you’d be delulu not to want the deets.
While we wait for a downtown station in Charlotte, the walk from the Parkwood light rail to Amtrak is really not that bad. Cross over the tracks at 16th St and grab a beer at Optimist Park on the way. Clocks at just over a mile. Obviously not ideal but far from the worst transit-to-transit connection I’ve made …
There’s really no reason, other than an insane level of general incompetence from the City of Charlotte, that either a) a temporary station is built, while the pie-in-the-sky multi-use/multi-modal project is sorted out, or b) the Amtrak station part of that project is built, with the ability to easily expand the development at a later time when conditions are more favorable. The project formerly known as the EpiCenter was built in this manner, which allowed for a Residence Inn by Marriott to rise at a later time (there was also supposed to be a 50+ story condo tower next to it but the recession killed that off). The Carolina Theatre renovation was also been conducted in a similar manner to allow an Intercontinental to be built on top of it at some point. But Charlotte city leaders seem to be both unserious and inept about infrastructure in general so I kind of doubt anything will happen until state politicians start holding their feet to the fire.
Now they are awaiting in Charlotte on the transit mobility tax vote in November as the Red and Silver lines would need to come through this station along with Amtrak.
Idk. I know that those who are at least somewhat involved with the project are saying that nothing could happen unless the transit bill is passed, but it’s such a complicated endeavor (Amtrak, light rail, and commuter rail plus bus service across the street) and to me seems like it should have been planned in phases from the beginning that wouldn’t require an insane amount of funding to build everything at once. Like what can we built now that will address obvious existing needs (read: Amtrak) without complicating future needs (light rail and commuter rail, plus bus service). With how poorly Charlotte has managed even basic infrastructure projects (is the Rail Trail bridge finally under construction?) this feels like way too much to coordinate at once.
Raleigh didn’t wait around to figure out what would happen next for light/commuter/regional rail. We built Union Station. Charlotte should cut the crap, as it were, and get going.
How about this for a solution:
Leaves the east side of the tracks completely free for whatever permanent station / development they are going to do there.
The other side of the tracks from the future station between Trade and 4th is a parking lot owned by Johnson & Wales. There’s also some kind of structure on the Trade St side but I can’t tell what’s in it. That strip is owned by the City.
Forthcoming Carolinian schedule change: work on the Long Bridge over the Potomac will impact the southbound Carolinian from 2026-2031, as the tracks over the Potomac will be closed between ~8AM and 1PM. Amtrak services during that morning window will all be pushed after 1 PM.
A preliminary schedule floated by VPRA pushes the southbound from an ~11AM departure from DC to around 1:30 PM.
Unfortunately, that’s also pretty much when the Floridian leaves – so now in both directions, both daily trains connecting Raleigh to the Northeast will be running within an hour of one another. 
It’s a bummer there isn’t a better solution in the meantime. At least it will be worth it in the end to get the Long Bridge expansion done.
For anyone unfamiliar, the expansion will double the number of tracks leaving southbound from DC, from two to four. Per wikipedia (FWIW) “the Long Bridge has historically been one of the worst bottlenecks in the national rail system, often operating at 98 percent capacity”.
There’s gnashing of teeth in southern Virginia about the plan, too. One person even suggested terminating trains at Alexandria and letting passengers take WMATA to Union Station, but that’s not going to happen.
Amtrak could push the Floridian’s departure from Chicago to later in the evening and from Miami to earlier in the morning.
I’d bump that last Piedmont back to 79’s slot.
That’s the plan for four VRE round-trips. Alexandria doesn’t really have spare track capacity, though.
Would work for VRE. They have facilities in Manassas and Fredericksburg. Doesn’t work well for Amtrak, which would have to service them somehow. What’s left of the NS Alexandria Yard could store trainsets, or they could reinstall the fourth track at the Alexandria station.
A detail I missed before: apparently the state of Virginia will own the new bridge tracks (CSX owns the existing bridge)! 
CSX will retain ownership of the Long Bridge and two tracks south of it. The state will own a third and fourth track from the new bridge that will carry passenger trains. Portions of the Interstate 95 rail line already have a third track, which Virginia will own under the agreement, and the state is pledging to build a third and fourth track in other stretches.
[source]
With Amtrak, VRE, and CSX freight, the ex-RF&P is very busy. It is already triple tracked as far south as Franconia. It ought to be triple tracked at least to the VRE Crossroads Yard south of Fredericksburg, but a lot of expensive bridge work will be required. If we ever hope to get Raleigh-DC in four hours flat, then Petersburg-DC will have to be two hours flat and we are a long way from that now. Good luck with triple tracking through Ashland, however. Another project worth doing is straightening the line near VA 207 north of Doswell.
Worth noting that Long Bridge is the only rail crossing of the Potomac River below West Virginia.
Yes. Down at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, many moons ago, a ferry operated between Norfolk and Cape Charles on the Delmarva peninsula for RR freight and passengers.
Predecessors of the Long Bridge for RR traffic go back to the Civil War, and there was a road bridge as far back as 1809.
Many people don’t know that during World War II, a temporary RR bridge was installed over the Potomac downstream from the Long Bridge, which was very busy and deemed a national security risk should be it bombed or sabotaged. The temporary bridge was removed after the war.
It would be amazing if the City of Raleigh introduced a special passenger train running between Downtown and the State Fair say, every 20–30 minutes. How feasible would something like that be?
It could help reduce fair traffic and parking congestion, while also encouraging people to explore downtown before or after their State Fair adventure.
