RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Department of Transportation is launching a feasibility study to consider the possibility of operating passenger rail service beween the Raleigh-Durham area and Greenville, N.C., the Charlotte Observer reports.
The $250,000 study, to be funded by a federal grant, is one of several considering expansion of the state’s passenger service to smaller communities, such as Wilmington and Asheville. Both those communities are among potential destinations included in Amtrak’s “Connects US” plan for new passenger corridors.
The study will take about 18 months and will consider how Raleigh-Greenville service would work and what it would cost, as well as the coordination needed with CSX Transportation and other freight operators. Jason Orthner, head of the NCDOT Rail Division, said studies looking at service between Raleigh and Wilmington, and between Salisbury and Asheville, will be finished in the next six to eight months.
The state already operates three daily Piedmont round trips between Raleigh and Charlotte and subsidizes the daily Carolinian between Charlotte and New York City.
The caption for the picture says that the train is preparing to leave the station. It looks to me as if it has already left the station. It will be past the platform in seconds. This article is so full of mistakes and misinformation that you can’t tell what the story is. It should be pulled, corrections made and reissued.
The article has a conflicting statements. Either it is “NS” to Greenville SC, or it is CSX to Greenville NC.
In the photo above, is the Piedmont shown in the above photo considered to be at the Raleigh Union Station?
I believe it is Greenville, NC. Maybe the article should have clarified that. What would be nice if the morning Piedmont would continue to Atlanta. The equipment could be turned and kept there overnight. An early morning departure from Atlanta would allow it to fill it’s now normal departure from Charlotte.
What I’m anxious to see is how much would NS claim it would take in dollars for several passenger trains to Asheville. Salisbury to Asheville I believe no longer hosts through trains. Possibility the state buys the line and folds it into the North Carolina Railroad? Which is owned 100 percent by the state. Then contract out freight service?
Greenville, NC is the location of East Carolina University, the likely source of most of the passenger traffic. It is about 25 miles east of Wilson, NC.
While I always love expansion of passenger service, South Carolina is likely hostile to paying for a train. They have more of a chance of making an expansion to Asheville happen than anything into South Carolina.
The map was supplied by Amtrak, clueless as usual.
Indeed Trains staff you need to fix this. Jim Wrinn would be saddened
Why would NC sponsor a train to Greenville SC as shown on the map? Greenville NC is near the coast.