Yep, I agree with ya on that one. Feel it’d be a good idea to connect two of the top 10 largest cities in NC via rail together. I think someone posted this not too long ago but looks like they completed a feasibility study already on a Raleigh to Fayetteville rail route. Looks like they could tap into some recent data for their decision making.
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Interesting thing about the Fayetteville route is that it would utilize what is supposedly the longest segment of straight track in the US. It’s owned by CSX and is perfectly straight for 78.9 miles. I recall seeing somewhere a while back that the track is currently only rated for like 20mph because it’s old and crappy, but the lack of curves could theoretically make it easy to upgrade to 100+mph, at least in the stretches outside of downtown areas.
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Both routes (via Fayetteville or Goldsboro) are no slouch when it comes to straightness.
The route via Goldsboro is significantly shorter, has no through freight traffic, and is tangent for nearly 48 miles from Faison to Rocky Point. Going via Fayetteville, you only get to use 54 miles of that 78 mile straightaway (from Pembroke to near Wilmington) so it’s kind of a wash anyway.
I have weighed this many times over and I do see benefits of both routes, but in the end I tend to think that going via Goldsboro is the better choice - because of less freight interference, and because it is the only way to yield a rail serevice to Wilmington that is remotely time-competitive with driving on I-40.
Let the train to Fayetteville be its own thing. Don’t sacrifice Raleigh-Wilmington service in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone.
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For sure, plus I think restoration of rail service to Goldsboro is a massive added benefit. Two big obstacles I see with the Goldsboro option are a) the awkward maneuvers that may be required to service Goldsboro Union Station and b) track restoration between Wallace and Castle Hayne.
But yes, agreed, Goldsboro is the better option for RAL-ILM service. If they eventually want to do a direct CLT-ILM route, then would be the time to activate this line.
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They studied Goldsboro back in 2009 and found that a direct track connection there would be feasible.
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Short video segment from WRAL on the $58 million that was recently awarded to the S-Line project.
No new information, except one interesting tidbit at the end: WRAL is claiming that NCDOT hopes to have passenger service on the S-Line in “three to seven years.” Does that sound off to y’all?
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Honestly I don’t see why they wouldn’t just build a new station, that station has been out of service for so long that I can’t imagine it would be all that much more expensive than renovating.
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Ah, good catch! Looks like they’d only be dealing with a single building in that instance.
If it’s not rotting from the inside out, I’d say restore it like they recently did with Winston-Salem’s Union Station, especially since the bus station is next door:
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I don’t know, a new wye just seems like potentially a big extra expense and could add a fair bit of dwell time to the Raleigh-Wilmington route, when there’s a vacant lot along the existing tracks just two blocks north. It doesn’t really look like Goldsboro has any significant transit either, just a few hourly shuttle buses.
The challenge with a station in Goldsboro is that they want it to be in a location where it could service Raleigh-Wilmington, Raleigh-Morehead City, and Wilmington-Wilson trains without needing any reverse moves. This plan achieves that. It’s hard to think of anything that does it better. The sharp turn immediately adjacent to the station doesn’t wind up slowing things down much, because trains would all be stopping there anyway.
Turns out the historic station is actually in the right place.
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CityNerd just posted a video scoring the city pairs for the Southeast corridor.
One thing that struck me was how he said it’d save infrastructure to go to Durham instead. Seems to be not very well thought out in that regard, even in a hypothetical.
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I saw that too. He also suggested hitting Winston-Salem on the way between Greensboro and Charlotte, so I’m not sure how much he’s thought it through.
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USDOT gave a $3.4M RAISE Grant to the S-Line Mobility Hub Plan. “This planning project will fund the planning of mobility hubs in seven communities along the passenger rail S-Line. The planning activities include feasibility and site assessments for all the partner communities, NEPA compliance, and preliminary engineering for four of the seven communities”: Norlina, Henderson, Franklinton, Youngsville, Wake Forest, Apex, and Sanford.
Wake Forest submitted the grant application, apparently.
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Interesting tidbit that popped up from a recent Time column via my Twitter feed: Elon Musk admitted back in 2019 that the whole purpose of the Hyperloop was a political ploy to get California’s high-speed rail project canceled. It wasn’t even intended as an innovation made in good faith.
Y’all should read the full Time article, as well, since it’s a fascinating discussion on whether we’re telling the right stories about ourselves and finding inspiration for the future in productive ways. …but I thought this tidbit was interesting, too, since it should make you very skeptical about the future of Hyperloops in the context of high-speed rail.
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Wow. As if I needed another reason to hate this P.O.S.
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On the one hand, pretty much forced electric cars into the mainstream by sheer force of will (even if Teslas look like high-end kitchen appliances to me). Also SpaceX is pretty neat.
On the other hand… almost everything else.
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Oh sure, so that he could keep his profits up. He could give absolutely zero shits about the environmental aspect of it LMAO.
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Remember the Southeast Corridor Development Strategy that we’ve been waiting for? I’m not sure how we missed it, but it’s out now!
This report is basically a review of existing state-led projects consolidated into a single timeline and narrative (plus information on how those different moving parts can coordinate together). This means there’s not a lot of new big-picture information here for those of y’all who have been following the SEHSR issue closely.
But for those of you that don’t: the Southeast Corridor Commission is a diverse group of decision-makers (including people in the federal and state governments) who are trying to set a common vision for passenger rail south of DC. The commission introduced a regional rail plan in 2020 (which is reflected in Amtrak’s ConnectUS plan that was released later), and made the case for how it specifically benefits the economy the following year. This report talks about how the 2020 vision can be achieved, as well as what’s already being done about it.
Most of this report focuses on planting the roots for “High Performance Rail”, the backbone of the Southeast Corridor (which includes the Raleigh-to-Richmond segment that, confusingly, we often call the Southeast High Speed Rail corridor). What’s been happening (and what the report suggests we continue) is that we’ve started to build a DC-to-Atlanta corridor that is growing southward in terms of project progress. Here’s a map of each major segment from the report; note that rail corridor projects in the Southeast tend to go through a two-step environmental review process (the end of each step is marked by a Record of Decision, or ROD) before property gets acquired, engineering designs get made, and construction starts.
The report also goes into a good amount of detail talking about the complexity of working with multiple rail companies, seeking funding sources, how to make a schedule for trains etc. It’s a great read if you want to appreciate what it will take for us to have good, reliable rail in the Southeast within our lifetimes.
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I think the only new information for me thus far (I just started poking through the doc) is that they plan to expand the existing Piedmont trains to Atlanta. Makes sense, I’ve just always thought of the Piedmont as strictly a North Carolina service. Also, if y’all don’t feel like counting, here’s what SEHSR service out of Raleigh could look like by the time all is said and done:
- Ten daily roundtrips in total
- Nine daily roundtrips to Charlotte
- Eight daily roundtrips to Atlanta
- Six daily roundtrips to DC and beyond (one via the existing alignment, the rest on the S-Line)
- One daily roundtrip to Miami via Savannah
Pair this with other potential commuter rail and inter-city services, and Union Station is a pretty serious rail hub for the Southeast by 2050.
Click here for services that have been proposed and/or studied in recent years.
This list includes proposals on federal, state, and local levels:
- Clayton to Durham via Garner, Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, and RTP (with potential extensions to Selma/Smithfield, Hillsborough, and Mebane)
- Raleigh to Fayetteville via either Garner, Clayton, Selma/Smithfield, Benson, and Dunn or Garner, Fuquay-Varina, and Lillington
- Raleigh to Wilmington via Selma-Smithfield, Goldsboro, Warsaw, and Burgaw
- Sanford to Franklinton via Apex, Cary, Raleigh, Wake Forest, and Youngsville (service could theoretically be extended to Henderson and Norlina as well, as they are participating in the TOD study, though I expect those will strictly be SEHSR stops)
- Raleigh to Goldsboro via either Knightdale, Wendell, and Zebulon or Garner, Clayton, and Selma-Smithfield
Counting SEHSR, you’re potentially looking at as many as nine different services running through Raleigh on a daily basis, many of which would have multiple roundtrips per day.
Not to be the resident grumpy cat, but part of me hates when one of these studies comes out, because, deep down, I know that most of these projects won’t be done until I’m old, if they’re done at all. It’s nice to feel hopeful for a moment, though.
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