The new Piedmont schedule also started today!
This means that, for what I believe is the first time, both tracks at RUS are utilized at once. RaleighGov posted a promotional video on insta and caught what appears to be the ~10am westbound Piedmont and northbound Silver Star.
Can’t wait till we need to build the 2nd platform!
I couldn’t find this on their Instagram (story/reels).
ps, I just needed to click one more time. Not hard to find.
Also on their Twitter.
Thanks for posting this! Got me off the fence and we booked a trip to Charlotte for a cousin’s kid’s birthday later this month. Been doing lots of road trip vacations this summer, so I am really excited to not have to drive. At $82 total round trip for 2 adults and a 2 year old it felt like a great deal.
With a tank of gas costing $40-55, and being able to read, look out the window, nap, have a beer, it’s a very reasonable upgrade!
Rode to Charlotte with my kid, a friend, and his kid to watch the USA mens soccer team play Trinidad and Tobago about a week ago. It was a fantastic trip! Caught the bus from the station to downtown, went to the Discovery Place museum, stayed in a hotel at the Epicentre, ate around Uptown, walked to and from the stadium. We played board games the entire time on the train and the three hours passed in the blink of an eye. Would highly recommend it!
It’s a little annoying that the light rail is visible from the Amtrak platform but it’s such a long walk. The bus was plenty convenient though.
Nice! Appreciate the bus tip, and my wife is already thinking we will hit up discovery place.
An interesting story on rail in Eastern NC
Wow, that’s great to hear. Seems like that could be an effective organization to help nudge NCDOT in the right direction.
Wilmington does get talked about a lot, but there is a lot of potential for rail service to all corners of ENC.
Each of these four corridors has a population of roughly 500,000 people.
Jason Orthner spoke to the High Speed Rail Association today. Some great insight into the Rail Division’s goals and plans.
One interesting callout - As a part of the Piedmont Improvement Program, overhead bridges were built with clearance in mind for overhead electrification. It’s not a project element in the S-line project, but it’s encouraging to see they have it in mind. Also, no mention of battery or hydrogen power (yay)! NCDOT Rail Division is truly a shining jewel.
And I dig Mr. Orthner’s train posters in his office 
There was a Q&A question about the potential electrification of the S-Line. Jason said that the state is sensitive to the clearance preferences of the freight railroads who will have rights to the corridor, and electrification was not a component of this project in the NEPA or anything else. However, he noted that (at the suggestion/requirement of the FRA) any highway underpasses or other infrastructure where there is an overhead clearance will be built tall enough such that catenary could be put up eventually. So, while not a current plan, definitely some forward thinking, which is good to hear.
Pretfy weak sauce…these kind of comments make a greenfield option more attractive.
Eh, I think it’s doing as much as they can with what they have. With these provisions plus the Sealed Corridor Program, NCDOT has seemed to agree with @orulz that getting the NCRR up to a standard of 125mph electrified operations is a priority, with greenfield HSR as a potential later option.
In the presentation, there’s a question about getting a large federal program started for high speed rail akin to the interstate program. Orthner seems to agree that something like this should exist and is hopeful that a consistent stream of funding would make a true high speed line possible in NC.
Double stack freight on the NCRR is vital to the national economy so I think it’s good that they are sensitive to freight RR clearances. Older bridges over the railroad that do not have clearance for double stack + elelctric wires will obviously have to be raised (or the tracks under them lowered) before we can electrify. It’s good that they are accommodating for this when they build new bridges, but they haven’t taken the next step of planning a clearance improvemement program for the entire corridor. I imagine somewhere in their internal archives they have a list of how many bridges are too low, it’s just a matter of getting the projects into the STIP.
Asheville wants in on intercity rail. It looks like it’d be a pretty scenic ride but probably not the most practical one. I had thought up until now that the alignment would’ve gone south through Hendersonville to Charlotte but apparently that doesn’t exist. The Hendersonville track goes to South Carolina and hundreds of miles of new track would have to be built to link it to the rest of the state.
Run the line out to Wilmington as well, make it the Mountains to Sea Trail 2.
Hopefully someday it gets electrified as well. Mountains to Sea Trail 2: Electric Boogaloo
I’m certainly happy that a big rail project like this is in NC is getting a lot of attention and maybe federal funding. But I feel like if we’re getting that kind of intercity rail funding, I would rather us build lines from Raleigh to Greenville and to Wilmington first. Those routes would certainly be cheaper.
I want it all to get built, but there’s only so much money out there for stuff like this.
This blog did a good job describing the problem. Amtrak's Endless Ridership-vs-Coverage Problem — Human Transit
Politically there is lots of pressure to expand the number of places covered, and pressure against expanding frequency where it would expand ridership.
I liked this map as a comment to the problem.
I saw Jarret Walker describe the trains across America from Amtrak as Land Yackts which is an interesting distinction from things like the 5 trains a day to Charlotte. The Asheville train feels a little like a land cruise ship.
And that section of track south of Hendersonville, known as the Saluda Grade, has been abandoned and sold. It’s currently slated to become a rails-trails greenway facility, so east to Salisbury is the only feasible way to connect to the main network.
