What train trips are people taking that are less than a day?
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Raleigh to Durham, Cary to Greensboro, anything in the Triangle to Charlotte.
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Not just free parking, but a 3 minute walk to/from the train. It’s the same reason that a lot of people in Raleigh who are taking Amtrak north to DC and beyond actually drive to Rocky Mount and catch the train there.
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Ok are you going to Cary to do that?
To go watch some football game in Charlotte? No, I couldn’t care less about it LoL.
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Sounds like they’re using the same sort of setup they do for Cary → Charlotte for Panthers games.
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The fun thing about the train is that you can buy a Raleigh-Cary ticket + a Cary-Charlotte group ticket… then you’ll be ready to welcome the rest of the group when they board in Cary.
Or you can leave the group before they arrive in Charlotte!
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And could the same for Hurricanes games too. MLB to Raleigh games too.
But the game itself will be 1/2 full….at best.
The mayonnaise bowl is one of the many low-tier bowls that need to go away……but don’t say that to the charlotte usa boosters…
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Those low tier bowls are for TV, not in-person fans. And they are crucial to avoiding talking about politics with my family during the holidays, I hope they stay just the way they are.
Besides, what’s wrong with New Mexico State or ECU fans having a bit of joy in their lives they wouldn’t otherwise have?
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As a state fan I’m glad we’re at least getting to play our bowl game this year after all the shenanigans Chip Kelly and UCLA played last season
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This past Tuesday, Raleigh’s City Council held a work station where they, among other things, heard updates about NCDOT’s acquisition and upgrade of the S-line corridor north of Raleigh. A lot of the more recent updates are procedural, but it’s still a nice update since the details have been lost from the media hype, as of late.
To clarify where we are: NCDOT got a $48M CRISI grant from Washington in 2020 to help buy the Raleigh-Norlina corridor from the freight rail giant CSX, and another $58M CRISI grant earlier this year to survey the land and do initial engineering work with Virginia. This helps us buy the land (but we are still working on pooling together the rest of the money needed, as well as closing the deal with CSX!) and do 30% of the necessary engineering work.
This is on top of several existing state-funded/federally-supported projects to eliminate railroad crossings between Raleigh and Wake Forest.
The federal DOT is also accepting applications for multi-year funding thanks to Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and NCDOT wants to take advantage of that to finish designing, then build rail upgrades between Raleigh and Wake Forest as a first phase of a fully upgraded higher-speed rail line between Raleigh and Norlina. Applications are due March 7, 2023. We’re not guaranteed to win this competitive grant, but getting that win would definitely help us bring in additional, faster rail service between Raleigh and Richmond by 2030 like the state wants.
On a very related note, communities along the S-line corridor have received two grants to help figure out how to encourage the areas around future stations to become more walkable and transit-supportive: a $900k grant in 2021, as well as a $3.4M RAISE grant this year. These, too, are being spearheaded by the state.
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Really interesting to me how this whole thing is slowly, quietly chugging along in the background. Jason Orthner seems to be doing a great job over there.
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Town of Apex gave an updated presentation (below) on the S-Line and how it would affect Apex. The slides show potential spots for Apex’s own multimodal transit station, shared the timeline(s), and also highlighted some downtown Apex residents’ concerns.
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This will do really well in Apex. As far as suburban cities go, they are doing fairly well with density. There are a lot of townhomes near downtown Apex with more coming.
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That’s super cool. Building on probably the best downtown outside of the three classic Triangle points.
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Man, I could have used the S-Line realignment for AMTRAK right about now.
I have a Dulles Airport flight to Egypt next month at 6:30 PM. I wanted to use AMTRAK to reach DC and then take the new Silver Line to Dulles.
However, the ONLY Train that day leaves at 9:30 AM and arrives at DC at 4:30 PM however can be delayed 1 or 2 hours and then it’s about 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes to Dulles. So I can’t take this route as I could very likely miss my flight.
If the new S-Line was available maybe I would have arrived to DC at 3:30 and I would like just make it to Dulles comfortably (no checked bags, TSA+).
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This article, from Virginia, provides one piece of information that is new to me, regarding the S-line:
State officials in North Carolina have taken the lead on the project. Virginia’s southern neighbor is eager to construct catenaries along the corridor as the lighter train sets and faster speeds they enable would allow passengers from Raleigh to Richmond to shave an hour and a half off of the journey, making the trip competitive with car travel.
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Wait. This paragraph sounds different, out of context, unless you pair it with the one that came just before it:
This implies that electrification is only possible where CSX will not run freight trains -i.e. not the entire set of high-speed tracks between Raleigh and Richmond, but just a smaller portion of it.
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