My dad worked for a railroad, so I grew up around it and I used to work on the safety crew for Southern Railway’s steam excursions out of Atlanta. Most locomotive engineers who have been on the job for 20+ years have watched somebody die in front of them and then had to walk back to the scene, check for the injured and dead, pee in a bottle and get interviewed by the police and by RR management, etc. Some old-timers have had it happen more than once. It’s a terrible experience.
I’ve ridden a Piedmont from Charlotte to Raleigh when it plowed into a truck. Fortunately, no one was injured and nothing derailed, although the engine crew was badly shaken. Back in the train, we heard the emergency brakes shoot and the conductor had the presence of mind to immediately shout at everyone to stay seated. Great work on his part. The grade crossing in question has since been closed.
Nothing really new, other than that leadership seems optimistic this is still moving ahead.
Despite a federal funding pause, North Carolina’s plan for faster passenger rail service between Raleigh and Richmond, Virginia, is weeks away from a review that could get the dollars back online.
Jason Orthner, rail division director for NCDOT, said he’s confident the federal dollars will ultimately be awarded, calling it a “paperwork exercise.”
Orthner said such funding reviews are common when a new presidential administration comes in. The goal is to “ensure that the project still meets all of the necessary requirements.”
“We’re anticipating finishing that soon,” he said. The paperwork and required documentation should be completed in the “next several weeks,” allowing work to start in earnest.
Didn’t realize that the full report on the mobility hub/train station for Apex was out (and adopted by the town council): Apex Mobility Hub Study
Still working my way through it all, but a few interesting nuggets in here, like the fact that NCDOT is working towards an extension of S-Line passenger services to Columbia, SC as they think it could improve their competitiveness for federal grants along this corridor (Raleigh->Hamlet was not selected for a CID award last time around).
The tactic is worth trying but I’m skeptical about results. For decades, support from SCDOT and the SC GA for passenger rail has been tepid at best and mostly limited to stations.
Work is quietly (or not so quietly depending on where you live) underway on the S line infrastructure. This particular project is building a new bridge to carry Durant Road traffic over the tracks. I imagine this grade separation should allow for higher train speeds?
Indirectly and eventually, yes. Trains operate at the slowest of many different constraints on speed. Track condition, curvature and acceleration from or deceleration into curvature, signal type, equipment type, etc. Besides all those, as a matter of principle NCDOT likes to eliminate grade crossings where passenger trains operate, especially where the passenger trains operate at 60 mph or higher.
In the short run, though, no – the freight trains will still plod through the area at the same speed they run at now. NCDOT is eliminating some grade crossings between Raleigh and Wake Forest on the assumption that funding will eventually materialize for either SEHSR or commuter trains. Personally, I think it’s crazy for a cash-strapped NCDOT to spend this kind of money to prepare for projects that no one has figured out the funding for.
The $1.09B grant would fund construction Wake Forest-Raleigh but as I understand it the grant does not cover acquisition of rolling stock or operations. Funding for those is still TBD. NCDOT put these initial bridge construction projects (Durant, Millbrook, New Hope, Rogers) into the TIP as far back as 2019. NCDOT now says the bridges are “largely funded” from the grant.
This is related to both this chat and the Commuter rail chat, the N.C. Rail Division is asking TPAC (Wake Transit Board) to recommend the governing boards approve $125 million to go towards a 20% match for S-Line and N.C. Line west of Raleigh two Federal Grant matches.
That $125 million request is half of the money from the Wake Transit Plan for the next 10 years, cutting some funding for bus service improvements. TPAC is split and the timing is horrible. Note: Wake County is only 20% of the entire project area.
Background: There is $5 billion available in Federal Grants following the pulling of the billion dollar HSR grant from LA/CA.
TPAC ruled to recommend that the boards set aside this money for the grants but (1) put guardrails in place so that if the grant applications are denied, the money is returned or (2) if they are received, NCDOT will look for additional funding sources (for dual roadway and rail projects along route) to decrease the pot coming from WT.
This is very interesting… seems like exactly the result the regional rail committee was looking for, no? Providing some money but NCDOT takes the lead. If the numbers are feasible though, I don’t know.
All of the 20% match funding, which is the problem. We have countless BRT, bus and microtransit projects (within Just Wake County) that need funding too. Personally, I see the $125 million (half of Wake Transit Funds for 10 years) amount as a problem.
The Feds are trying to gut all of the funding for non-intercity rail or general transit projects (that includes BRT, other bus services, etc.).
That would be about 12 miles of new construction for a second track between Cary and East Durham. The big ticket item is a 300-foot bridge over I-40 in RTP.
Agree 100%. They know what a lift it would be. I went to a presentation by one of the higher-ups at NCDOT this fall and they specifically mentioned that their models include a significant increase in use for passenger rail when the Charlotte station is opened. I believe they even mentioned the possibility of the temporary station. If memory serves, they were confident they could see movement on it if the Charlotte transit tax passed, which it did.
The City of Raleigh put a lot of its own money into RUS, and I’m sure NCDOT would like to see the City of Charlotte do likewise. On the other hand, the public-private partnership for the Charlotte Gateway station has been fruitless for 10 years… and counting.
I have coworkers in Georgia that couldn’t believe that I take the train from Raleigh to Kannapolis for work. They said they just don’t have the setup for that in Georgia to get around the state.
I’ve commented this before but Charlotte-Hamlet-Wilmington should be heavily explored as well. The tracks are there, and are currently used by CSX (although that might complicate passenger service). It would knock off a little over 100 miles compared to arcing around Charlotte-Raleigh-Goldsboro-Wilmington, and would also provide additional infrastructure connections for several really struggling cities (namely Laurinburg and Lumberton).
