Thanks for the head’s up about this application! It’s definitely an interesting grant application that builds off of some clever political maneuvering. For example, it tries to be considered as a “rural” project since the majority of proposed station developments are outside of the Triangle’s core metro area; if the FTA buys that argument, it could improve our chances since it would mean we’d be competing against other rural projects (as opposed to big, shiny, urban ones). The grant tries to make the case that we’re a “disadvantaged community” (we need that designation to ask for the federal government to cover beyond 80% of the cost), so there’s that going for us too.
Will those moves actually help (or hurt) us? Did we ever stand a chance in the first place? Unfortunately that’s really hard to predict, since the application spans two new funding mechanisms (read: what we’re applying for is so new that we don’t have good examples of what “should” or “shouldn’t” be competitive). But since the application makes it clear that our region is building off of good progress made on our previous RAISE planning grant, I want to imagine we have a good shot at things.
If we win this grant, though, the only thing that will be constructed would be a train station + bus terminal at RTP. Several other stations would become ready for construction (in terms of permitting, land purchases etc.), but other funding sources would be needed to pay for their constructions. Still, that’s as close to being shovel-ready as you could get, especially with such an aggressive timeline:
It is a good spot for a stop, Cary is about 1/3 the way from Raleigh to Durham, the new RTC is about 2/3. However you do start to worry about diluting the value of the Piedmont as an intercity service.
I’d like to see 2 tiers of service in NC.
1st tier is Raleigh<->Charlotte express, stopping only in Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury, Charlotte. Could maybe throw in Burlington.
2nd tier is basically NCDOT inter-regional local service: Raleigh<->Winston-Salem and Charlotte<->Winston-Salem. This would covering both the smaller stops on today’s Piedmont skipped by thebabove express, and also making some extra stops beyond even that, including places like RTP/RDU, NCSU, Hillsborough, Elon, Lexington, Spencer, etc, and connecting with the expresses in Greensboro and Salisbury.
Tier 1 - Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Charlotte. That’s it! This would be an express service that should serve interstate travelers on the Carolinian and Crescent (and maybe a future NY-ATL line that includes Raleigh)
Tier 2 - The current Piedmont stops with the addition of Wake Forest once the S line is up.
Tier 3 - The line you listed as Tier 2 would be my T3 with the stops in Winston-Salem and more stops in each metro. I do like the idea of a stop in Hillsborough for this one.
I think 3 tiers of service is too much. Each tier needs enough frequency to be worth it.
Also I think for any of this to work we need to invest in solutions that dramatically speed things up. In this order:
High platforms at major stations
Full double track
High platforms at remaining stations
Curve realignments for fewer slow zones
Higher top speeds (125mph)
Electrification
Figure 2 stops (Durham, Burlington) between Raleigh and Greensboro for the express. After the improvements above, trains will cover that in about 60 minutes.
Not sure how many more intermediate stops for the local but I can name 11 possibilities: NCSU, Fairgrounds, Cary, RTP, NCCU, Duke, Hillsborough, Mebane, Elon, McLeansville, NC A&T. I’d like the time to be 90 minutes. Not sure if all total 13 intermediate stops can be done in that time. So you’d have to pick and choose. Maybe different stopping patterns for different trains, or maybe just drop some of the weaker stations altogether.
You probably time things for a local/express cross-platform transfer in Burlington or Greensboro, or some such.
The locals can continue East from Raleigh towards Wilmington, Fayetteville, Morehead City, Greenville, etc while the express can continue north on the S-line to Richmond.
I note that Winston-Salem to both Charlotte and Raleigh is on the list. So maybe somebody at NCDOT is also thinking about the possibility of a “Piedmont Local” via W-S.
The only (IMO) notable corridors not listed here are Charlotte to Wilmington and the direct route from Charlotte to Raleigh.
Last Friday and Sunday when I was on the train there was a NCDOT employee passing out surveys and one of the questions was, “What destination in the state should be added to the routes?”
I expect Hamlet would be the least-used station on the corridor and that they are primarily eyeing Apex and Sanford, both of which already have historic depots in downtown that probably need very little work to reactivate. But, if you’re already planning service on that corridor, it makes sense to just continue on to Southern Pines and Hamlet since active stations already exist in those places. Not to mention that CSX has a pretty large yard in Hamlet with a decent amount of space around it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d be looking to lease some of that land for storage and/or maintenance between runs (if that’s a thing, I know very little about freight operations).
Seems like Wake Forest would get service along a new S-Line north-south route, roughly along US 1 from Norlina to WF to Raleigh to Southern Pines to Hamlet. Piedmont service extension is more likely to continue along NCRR to Selma and points east.
The dwell time wouldn’t be that bad if they didn’t do absurd intercity rail things like demanding diesel locomotives (vs. DMUs/EMUs) or insisting on huge boarding queues.
I rode the train up to a reception in Durham at the start of Duke’s spring break. The conductors were chatting amongst themselves about how several hundred students were boarding at Durham… and forced every single one of them to queue up for two doors. It’s a train, not a plane! It has lots of doors!
That’s the policy at low level platforms and it’s more than likely not going to change. There are always a few elderly folks with big bags who definitely need the assistance of conductors.
The real answer is high platforms. Of course NCDOT built them at the two stations where it matters the least for trip times - Raleigh Union and Charlotte Gateway, the endpoints!
This is one of many places where Brightline just “gets it” better than anywhere in the US: they do high platforms with retractable gap fillers mounted on the trains for fully ADA compliant access to all doors on all cars. No boarding queues. Somebody in a wheelchair can board unassisted in a matter of seconds. Fast, reliable, excellent. That’s what we need here.
Thread from a transit planner comparing Brightline Florida to Amtrak’s most productive regional corridors – including the Piedmont. The arrows are “stringlines,” each one showing one train moving along the line across the day (read from top to bottom + left to right). Surprised how many other corridors have only 5X/day – and that Brightline’s already off and running with 15X/day service.
The most common negative factor I hear regarding the Brightline project is the high number of railroad crossings and the slowdown this causes. As well the accidents and delays won’t be in their favor. I would add what most people on this site are aware of that NCDOT has been and continues to upgrade our railroad crossings
