I just saw that as well. Here’s a tweet from a WSOC-TV reporter.
Do we have a number for projected cost of a 110mph S-Line?
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Gonna tap @orulz once again for an answer on this & his general opinion on the size of this grant!
This should cover the consultants, studies and public outreach.
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He previously mentioned 10 figures being a big deal and potentially revolutionary.
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If I were a consultant, this would be revolutionary for my fees as well!
Ok, done with the jokes for this one. In all seriousness this does sound like incredible news and I hope it’s right, and put to good use, FAST!
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I think he was referring to money for improvements to the Piedmont Corridor (Raleigh → Charlotte). The $1 Billion just announced is for the S-Line (Raleigh → Richmond, VA). Correct me if I’m wrong @orulz
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I’ve never seen a cost estimate for the S-Line project, but a billion sounds like construction money to me, not just more engineering. S-Line from Raleigh to the state line is a 60-mile existing ROW, not CAHSR.
An SC news article says NCDOT has confirmed, but the official USDOT announcement is Friday.
https://www.heraldonline.com/news/state/north-carolina/article282703473.html
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Fantastic news! A billion is a lot of money and should go a long way toward making this a reality. Below is a link to an article from TBJ (behind paywall). The article says that the $1 billion is a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“NCDOT and Amtrak are providing a 20 percent non-Federal match to fund the project. The Federal Railroad Administration expects an initial obligation of fiscal year 2022-23 funds of nearly $480 million, with contingent commitments from in fiscal years 2024 through 2026 providing the balance of the funds.”
Also, “The North Carolina Department of Transportation confirmed the funding but declined to comment, saying more details would be released in the days ahead.”
So the way I read this, is that there is at least $1.2 billion in funding, with $1 billion from the US DOT and another $200M from NC DOT and Amtrak.
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$1b is a 10 figure number, but it’s the lowest possible 10 figure number. It won’t buy full build out. This is a really big deal, and will go a long way - but to me, at first glance, it doesn’t seem like quite the center field home run I was hoping for.
The number I recall hearing for full grade separated, 110mph S-line build out is $2.4 billion, and that was several years ago. So several possibilities for this $1b:
- Scope is reduced in some way. 79mph, partly or mostly on the old alignment, etc. I’ve seen speculation that they might skip the curve adjustments and full grade separation in areas where track still exists south of Norlina, and do full build-out from there to Petersburg. There are other possible scope reductions that might make sense, like kicking the can on the most expensive segments (basically, downtown Raleigh and downtown Richmond.)
- Matching funds will be coming from NC, Virginia, and/or Amtrak to cover the rest of the cost
- This is for NC’s portion of the S-line build-out, and Virginia will get a separate grant for their portion
Edit: Here is a link mentioning the $2.4 billion cost, from 2017:
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I believe I read that NCDOT and Amtrak committed to a 20% match between the two of them, bringing the total committed is $1B + $200M.
NCDOT is planning to release a statement on Friday with more details about the grant.
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That’s describing the full Raleigh-Richmond scope. We’ll know Friday (probably), but what we’ve been told so far is that this is $1B for NCDOT – even though they only have 60 miles of the route, and probably the simpler half since it’s all still active track.
VDOT has 70 miles from Lake Gaston up to Petersburg, and the toughest bit – the ~30 miles from Petersburg to Richmond.
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To ask a few dumb questions for the experts, what would all the bells and whistles being implemented do for total travel time between Richmond and Raleigh (estimated total time)?
Also will this go to the downtown station or to the one out in the middle of nowhere?
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The recommended alternative is a route from Richmond Main Street Station. Virginia is spending quite some coin to work out a better route through Richmond; there are several railyards to untangle and a high volume of freight traffic moving through the area (north-south along the East Coast and east to the port).
“The travel time for SEHSR service between Richmond, VA, and Raleigh, NC, will be approximately two hours and fourteen minutes.”
Current and future rail travel times from Raleigh to… (and projected driving times from Google now, at around midnight - if traveling at any other moment, add in traffic delays)
Richmond - 3:36 vs. 2:14 (2:34)
Washington - 5:59 vs. 4:22 (4:26)
New York - 9:57 vs. 7:25 (8:01)
I posted some sample schedules upthread. A route schematic from the 2015 EIS (apparently Carolinian stays on A-Line through Selma, but Silver Star moves to S-Line):
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4:22 to DC. Absolutely incredible. That is going to be a huge draw.
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Agreed, cutting an hour and a half to DC would be amazing. That puts it on par with driving plus not having to deal with the traffic which often makes the drive time even longer than planned. And I assume that goes to Union Station, so you are right in the middle of the the city when you get there and don’t have to deal with paying to park.
Would make a long weekend trip to DC far more appealing.
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100% would do that. Currently I can’t justify the added time at all so I’m always driving to both Richmond and DC. The last time I took the train from Richmond it took nearly 5 hrs - ridiculous. It was the last time for a reason.
The other part of the equation is frequency. Right now there’s 2 trains to Richmond/DC daily, both in the morning. That’s just not enough. There needs to be some afternoon and evening options for folks headed up after work to think about taking the train when they are doing travel planning.
I took the NE Regional between NYC and DC probably 100 times RT when I was living and working in the NE. That was possible because of consistent travel time and frequent train service.
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Virginia got $729 million - so their Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects of “Transforming Rail in Virginia,” including Long Bridge, are now fully funded.
It doesn’t seem like any more funding has been awarded for the S-line, so $1b is it for now.
So to restate the possibilities I see, in order of descending likelihood:
- This intended to fund the entire line, at reduced scope
- This is intended to fund part of full build-out, but NC/Virginia are left to their own devices to scrape together the rest
- The full project is still on, but full funding is pending from some other unannounced source
- This is intended to fund full build-out of part of the line (eg, the suburban Raleigh portion), but the rest has been deferred
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There is an online meeting of the NC-VA Interstate High Speed Rail Compact at 3pm next Monday, December 11 2023. I imagine all of these things will be topics for discussion. The online webinar appears to be open to the public, but you have to register to attend.
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Praying for #2 if they have the will to do it. Or perhaps more federal grants in the years to come. I think it’d be a shame to build this thing for only 79mph the whole way, but I’ll take what we can get.
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My guess for what we will will actually get at the outset: the S-line replaced as it was in 1986 (79 mph max between Raleigh and Collier Yard in Petersburg) except that a second track will be installed for some if not all of Raleigh-Wake Forest. The earth-moving required to straighten curves for 110 mph will happen later. The Silver Star will move onto the restored S-line immediately. If the Carolinian is kept on its current route to provide intra-state connectivity for people in Selma/Smithfield, Wilson, and Rocky Mount, then I would expect an additional Charlotte-DC train that runs on the restored S-line.
Remember, construction funding is one thing but operational funding is another. All the additional trains will require operational money, and no one has been talking about that yet.
Starting with a modest ambition and then continually improving the service is a strategy that worked well for the Piedmonts, even if it’s not sexy.
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