The $2 billion dollar bridge to DC not being electrified is a damn shame.
1 Like
Probably right. If I were to guess CSX is worried about double stacks being too tall for the catenary. Hopefully some of those new Siemens locomotives Amtrak is getting are dual mode, so they can make a pretty seamless transition to and from the catenary as needed.
Yeah, the article says exactly that. We’ll see if the partially-electrified tracks actually happen, since that could help us with getting faster, cleaner higher-speed rail.
2 Likes
I feel really good about seeing any amount of catenary built for the S-line (and NC is taking the lead on that? Wow!). I feel like it will be easier in the future to further electrify an already partially electrified line than to greenfield electrification on existing tracks. Even if we have to do dual mode for a while, I feel optimistic that rail travel will continue to get popular, and freight railroads will at some point stop being the big dogs.
Or, who knows; maybe they’ll surprise us and electrify the whole thing. There is precedent for double-stacked freight running under catenary in the US.
3 Likes
i got a greyhound bus to beat the amtrak to dc on one occasion
2 Likes
If anyone is curious whether non-American democracies are struggling with big rail projects as well, you should look into the HS2 initiative that’s supposed to link up London to other key cities throughout England.
The UK has had high-speed rail running between London and continental Europe since what’s now High Speed 1 opened in 2003 -but the Brits didn’t seriously move to build high-speed train tracks beyond that until afterwards. And when they did, multiple prime ministers (and their governments) rushed through it, pressuring Parliament to quickly build it even when its design, costs, and unintended consequences were unclear. This, naturally, led to years of delays for its first phase, ballooning budgets for (and grim prospects for the survival of) future extensions, incessant protests, and broken promises throughout Great Britain.
And this article argues that all of those headaches could’ve been avoided if the DfT (the Brits’ equivalent to the USDOT) had tread more carefully by doing things that we are already doing here in the Triangle since we learned from our light rail mistakes.
(This website has a soft paywall, but you shouldn’t have any problems getting through it if you clear your cookies and/or open up a new incognito session.)
4 Likes
Watched a YouTube vid on this a few months back, definitely worth checking out:
1 Like
How much of the S-Line from the border to Raleigh is currently owned by NCDOT and how much is still owned by CSX? Will freight share the rail lines with passenger rail?
Ncdot owns like a 30 foot wide strip along (IIRC) the east side of the S-line right of way from downtown to Durant. They bought this piece of ROW back in ~2005 for the failed rail project.
VADOT owns the entire inactive portion of the ROW from the NC/VA border to Ridgeway.
The rest, is still owned by CSX.
4 Likes
I wanted to know more about this and looked it up on the city’s iMaps platform, but I couldn’t find anything about this. Do you know where else we could learn more?
As for other strips of land near the S-line north of RUS, NCDOT obviously owns its existing rail yard. But besides that, I could only find 501 W. Peace St. (owned by Norfolk Southern), 820 E. Six Forks Rd., the former Seaboard Industrial Park south of the corner of St. Albans and New Hope Church, 3231 Atlantic Av., and 5460 and 5464 Old Wake Forest Rd. -and none of those parcels are listed by the city to be owned by NCDOT. Plus, every other parcel between RUS and downtown Wake Forest seemed to obviously be parts of other parcels.
I was wrong about two things: it’s GoTriangle (former TTA), not NCDOT that owns it, and the portion they own extends from Harrington to Spring Forest, not Durant.
Here are a few links:
https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2008/03/10/story5.html
7 Likes
A few months back but good to know and remember 
12 Likes
i know the eastern seaboard is growing but does amtrak serve that many of the raleigh to richmond market? i went to richmond once for a RUSH concert. is there that much raligh interest in richmond ? i didn’t really like Richmond much except for one guy in the old fan.
Funny thing about trains, when they stop at a station they don’t have to turn around and come back. They can keep going in the same direction to other stations. Like DC, Baltimore,
New York…
1 Like
Interesting data someone pulled on a Twitter high speed rail thread…
https://twitter.com/BarthDonners/status/1620513098682761217?t=1L1D320w4AG_p2ihL1tPvw&s=19
6 Likes
Who knew we all wanted to go to Columbia that much!
5 Likes
Well…
You can see this happening, too, with the thick-lined corridor between Greensboro, Lynchburg (ignoring Danville I guess?), Charlottesville, and DC. Also, if this model is anything like what he used in his Master’s thesis, it might mean that his model also considers similar-ish journeys as a part of a corridor even if it doesn’t make geographic sense (e.g. driving between Mt. Airy and Concord might count towards the thickness of the “Greensboro-Charlotte” corridor even though you’d never drive through either city to make that trip).
This is still an interesting map! You just gotta be careful of the limits of the data and not be afraid to say that your conclusions don’t make sense.
6 Likes
This may not be the right thread – but I was driving past the NCDOT maintenance yard adjacent to Capital today and noticed what I’m fairly certain was an Amtrak Superliner (or maybe viewliner) attached to a Piedmont consist. Any idea what’s up?
2 Likes
Amtrak inspection car took a round trip between Raleigh and Charlotte. NCDOT showing off improvements to officials.
5 Likes
From Twitter…
https://twitter.com/NC_By_Train/status/1623753874002640899?s=20&t=0YM9oFRxyw292u3purrMog
14 Likes