Rail Line to Fuquay-Varina

Factor in too they have their law school in downtown Raleigh not at all far from Union Station. Would make traveling back and fourth between those two very easy.

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Hey, good for Fayetteville trying to link into the Triangle in this way. I think they smartly realize that their city/region could become a very affordable outpost for Triangle workers if this comes to fruition. Big if.

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Can you imagine threading the Boylan Wye backwards and forwards with every operational move by using the ‘Western Corridor’ alignment? It boggles the mind that they even thought to include that in the analysis and stated it with a straight face.

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Talk in railfan circles that Norfolk Southern is selling the line Fayetteville-Fuquay to the shortline operator RJ Corman. Leasing it to them Fuquay-Raleigh. Potential evidence: Operations Manager - Raleigh, NC-R. J. Corman Railroad Group

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This is really interesting news. Do you have any more details, or a source? How long are the terms of the lease?

I wonder why they would sell it south of Fuquay, while merely leasing it to the north? Do you have any details about active customers on this stretch? About the only major customer I see on this line is Johnson Concrete, ad that’s at the very southern end. There are a few spurs just south of Tryon Road but it doesn’t look like they’re very active. Not that there is zero potential, but there just isn’t really much there today, at all.

Does NS view Raleigh-Fuquay as strategically important to their network somehow? Or are they holding on to it thinking they could sell it for a tidy sum to a government entity, as a transit route, rail trail, or some such?

What are the (rumored?) southern limits of this sale/lease? There are some pretty big shippers on the line in Fayetteville like Goodyear and Fay Block, and it’s hard to image NS letting go of serving them directly - but then again, Fayetteville is a dead-end as far as NS is concerned, so I guess that’s what’s on the table.

What about the currently inactive line from Fuquay to Brickhaven? Is that in the sale/lease limits as well?

Any thoughts or ideas on how RJ Corman might plan to operate this line? Would they operate it from the north out of Glenwood Yard? Or could they operate out of Fuquay, and interchange with other RRs at the endpoints in Fayetteville, Brickhaven, and Raleigh? If they do interchange in Raleigh, would they need access all the way to Glenwood Yard, or would the interchange tracks on the southern leg of the wye be enough - leaving a possible opening to close/eliminate the diamond crossing at Boylan?

This obviously has some implications for the Artery idea, although I’m not entirely sure if it’s an opportunity or an obstacle?

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Details sketchy right now: NS spinoff in North Carolina. FWIW RJ Corman hosts the Nashville commuter service.

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The section from Fuquay to Colon has been largely out of service due to storm damage for quite some time. There’s no plan for repair unless a desire is registered from any of the future industrial tenants of the Moncure Megasite.

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Judging from their map of company-owned rail lines and corporate facilities, it seems like their business model is aimed more at taking advantage of ferrying cargo across multiple Class I railroads (though they do run a tourist train side gig as well). It’ll be interesting to see how much they’re willing to invest in making those tracks operational for freight service, but it doesn’t sound to me like there’s much change in the context of getting Raleigh-Fuquay and/or Raleigh-Fayetteville passenger train services (and let’s be honest: that’s what most of us care about, here).

Maybe RJ Corman could be less of a bad-faith negotiator for that sort of thing compared to Norfolk Southern, but that’s also such a low bar that I don’t know if it really matters.

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Who knows. They may be more convinced to invest in a better connection to the NCRR than threading the needle at Boylan.

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R.J. Corman is leasing, rather than purchasing, the segment between Fuquay-Varina and Raleigh. I don’t know if any of our railroad aficionados have any thoughts about why that might be.

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In addition to being a prollific shortline operator, RJ Corman is also well known for their RR construction division. Though they probably wouldn’t be the ones you’d hire to build a greenfield high speed rail line, they definitely would be on the table for restoring a storm-damaged branch line, or building the mile-long connection we’ve talked about in Garner from this line to the NCRR.

Anyway, this is definitely an interesting development, but I’m not at all sure what the implications are.

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As far as why NS would sell the line from Fuquay to Fayetteville, while the major customers are heavily tilted towards that side of the line - the Raleigh-Fuuquay segment is a “dead end” from the perspective of Norfolk Southern’s network. They have no lines continuing in any direction from there. Whereas, the Raleigh-Fuquay segment is potentially a part of a through line that continues from Fuquay to Brickhaven, Colon, Gulf, and eventually through Siler City and on to Greensboro.

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FYI: Robert Menzies’ Aberdeen, Carolina & Western RR completed their purchase of the original NSRy alignment from Gulf to Charlotte in 2019. This included the initial trackage from Star to Aberdeen. And, they have a bang up repair/restoration shop in Candor.

So, is the door being left open for ACWR to extend to Raleigh?

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Not sure.

It’s often said that Norfolk Southern jealously guards their route from Charlotte to Greensboro via Barber Junction and Winston Salem (blue outline) - even though they barely maintain it, they view it as strategically important as a potential way to bypass the NCRR (green outline), if hey ever lose access to the NCRR for any reason. Even if they never lose access, they can use it as a bargaining chip in negotiations to make it seem like they don’t actually need the NCRR, and maybe get a cheaper lease rate.

I would hypothesize that NS may be similarly keeping this one (orange outline) in their back pocket as a bypass of the NCRR from Greensboro to Raleigh.

NS deserves a bit of a side-eye for this one, though, because it’s pretty obvious they’re not really serious about keeping this route as a bypass. They barely maintain these routes, annd just like you mentioned storm damage between Fuquay and Colon, there’s also storm damage between Winston-Salem and Clemmons that has sat unused and unrepaired for a decade or more.

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Be pretty awesome to have some new RR names to bat around. I just like saying AC&WR, lol.

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Especially, when the ACWR has an incredible repair/restoration facility filled with wonderful toys over in Candor…

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Do you think NS acting tihs way simply because of pure stubbornness and corporate greed? Or do you think they have a genuine business case but their strong belief in that is giving them tunnel vision (and thus keeping them from looking at alternatives, such as investing more in double-tracking and better scheduling technologies so that they can increase track capacity)?

Better hope NS doesn’t do a hostile takeover of this short line… Partnering with ACWR would be a perfect way to get a hold of right-of-way for a truly high-speed rail line between Raleigh and Charlotte without having to make what @orulz called the “deal with the Devil”.

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Does this mean NCDOT’s Raleigh to Fayetteville commuter rail system dream dead in the water or improved outlook?

Hard to say. Most commuter rail proposals have to take into consideration the needs of the host railroad. So far, the NC paradigm has been having to work with the NCRR as a negotiating partner.

With ACWR or RJC, it becomes a whole new game.

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