North Carolina NCDOT-Amtrak Piedmont Service

electricron wrote: While great for Amtrak and Piedmont trains, how long it took to start shows that many of the rail projects were not construction ready. Emergency funds for stimulating the economy during a recession to get people back to work wasn't spent until long after the recession was over. Poor timing.

The $8 billion in stimulus funds for passenger rail were not for "shovel ready" projects, but for long term investments in infrastructure. It was expected that it would a take a while before construction would start and be completed, hence the September 2017 deadline for expending the $8 billion. However, it has a lot longer, even for most of the straightforward projects, to advance to construction than I think Congress and the White House staff expected when they threw in the $8 billion for passenger rail.

electricron wrote:

afiggatt wrote:

matthewsaggie wrote:This is another ARRA stimlus funded project. Proud to say that NC did well in obtaining theses funds for projects such as double tracking, Raleigh station, sidings on the H line, and now cross overs on the A line. ...

… funds for the crossovers that CSX will install over the next year was awarded close to 5 years ago. Good to see the construction work get started, but good grief it has taken a long time for what should be a simple project.

While great for Amtrak and Piedmont trains, how long it took to start shows that many of the rail projects were not construction ready. Emergency funds for stimulating the economy during a recession to get people back to work wasn't spent until long after the recession was over. Poor timing.

Sweetness to claim that the effects of the Great Recession are over.
But the economy remains far, far below where we could have been
before the crisis threw things into reverse.

Today millions of people who lost good jobs are trying to live on
part-time work or minimum wage jobs. Millions of others gave up
looking for work and retired as best they could, often on disability,
their disabilities probably aggravated by depression induced by being
unemployed. The share of working age citizens working or actively
looking for work reached historic lows in the Great Recession and
it has stayed low.

We actually need more measures NOW -- including more infrastructure
projects -- to increase employment opportunities. But it is much easier
for Congress to simply forget about the saddest victims of the financial
crisis of 2008.

trainhq wrote:In all fairness, the Asheville corridor simply does not have the kind of ridership potential needed
to justify the expense of upgrading the line. Rail needs a relatively high population density
to make it worthwhile, and only the string of cities from Raleigh to Atlanta can make it
worth the expense.

Asheville: #2 best place in the nation for start-ups. Reason to connect it to the national rail passenger network?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/startupcity/startup-city-americas-best-places-to-start-a-business?click=pp#slide-2

eastwind wrote:Asheville: #2 best place in the nation for start-ups. Reason to connect it to the national rail passenger network?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/startupcity/startup-city-americas-best-places-to-start-a-business?click=pp#slide-2

Problem is that every train that goes to Asheville is one that has to forego either Charlotte or Greensboro-Raleigh. Every time you do that, you're trading away large populations, that are nearby, on a fast track for small populations, far away, on an expensive track. On a dollar-per-new-rider basis, it is really hard to justify.

If Asheville was where Gastonia is, it'd be a no-brainer to have it be the terminus of all kinds of stuff. I looked for some way for a CLT train to "continue on" to Asheville, but it looks like a key bit of NS is missing (which would have allowed routing through South Carolina, briefly), and that a CSX-to-NS routing would be a circuitous trip through nowhere. I'd almost rather connect from NS' Asheville to NS's Gastonia by carving a new ROW in the median of US 74 and a bit of CSX to do
Asheville-Hendersonv'l-Shelby-Gastonia-Charlotte. Much better population centers.
(click for map)

As it is, bus connectors on I-40/26 make a lot more sense.

If Asheville is where everyone wants to go (of the Bostonians I know who've moved to NC, both households moved to Asheville), so a limited-stop bus to all-directions connections in Greensboro seems like a good idea. Now to get Greensboro more day trains to WAS....

Wouldn't another option- if funding were found- be to run a train south from Greensboro through Charlotte and to Spartanburg, SC, and then up to Asheville via Norfolk Southern's line? There were passenger trains on the Asheville-Spartanburg line until at least the 1960s.

I can't see people from Greenville or Charlotte taking the train to Asheville however it's routed; driving is 2 hours from Charlotte and maybe an hour-ish from Greenville.

How did the Southern Railway's Asheville Special survive so long? Asheville is not a huge city and the train's routing isn't ideal. A direct trip from Charlotte would be best, but even Charlotte wasn't huge in the '70s.

^I bet "via Spartanburg" (which is a decent-sized metro) would be the most economical option for NC, even if SC was a PRIIA freeloader. GSP and ASV airports s work and struggle a lot like ROA and LYH.

The Saluda grade is probably a faster option up the Blue Ridge than the Old Fort loops but the route hasn't seen a train for more than a decade (or so). The signals are gone and there is at least one _major_ washout.

The Saluda route would work very well with SEHSR which would connect the route to Atlanta, which is a market (along with Raleigh) where rail would compete very well with driving to Asheville.

^ Map? (For those of us who haven't kept up on our branch names in the Carolinas

Arlington wrote:^ Map? (For those of us who haven't kept up on our branch names in the Carolinas

http://www.ncdot.gov/download/performan ... ailmap.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Saluda Grade (the steepest in the East) is the blue line running from Tuxedo to Landrum. Basically everything between Tuxedo and Landrum has been completely shut down for at least 10-15 years. The tracks from Hendersonville to Tuxedo were shut down 3-4 (?) years ago. However, NS has been very clear that they do not plan to abandon any of these tracks. With the exception of crossing signals and the washout the tracks appear to be in very good shape (they appear to get a regular dose of herbicide) and there are annual rumors on other messageboards that NS is 'taking steps to reactivate' the line (basically every time a highrailer is spotted folks start to ramble about 'Panama Canal" "Port of Charleston" etc.) but, inevitably, its a false alarm.

I am rarely down there but I believe that traffic from Spartanburg to Landrum is light but steady.

As an aside, the Brevard branch has very nice welded rail, but (despite what the map indicates) it has also been dormant for several years.

Bob Roberts wrote:http://www.ncdot.gov/download/performan ... ailmap.pdf
The Saluda Grade (the steepest in the East) is the blue line running from Tuxedo to Landrum. Basically everything between Tuxedo and Landrum has been completely shut down for at least 10-15 years. The tracks from Hendersonville to Tuxedo were shut down 3-4 (?) years ago.

So the map has correctly "dashed" the "Preserved/OOS" Tuxedo-Landrum part, but should have also dashed the Hndrsnvl-Tuxedo part (which, by your description is also Preserved/OOS)

OK, you've sold me. The Saluda Grade seems the right path over which to run passenger service, with my guess being that NS would be thrilled to have a stable customer and state sponsor for re-opening it.

Extending beyond CLT to Gastonia, Hndrsnvl and Ashville hits decent sized areas that have grown (like any part of NC that is growing) powered by migrating Northeasterners. Connecting them to Charlotte reinforces Charlotte's role as the dominant trading city and reinforces the NCRR (for its whole length) as NC's economic spine.

Looking at growth and density maps, the stretch along Morgenton-Hickory-Statesville (along I-40) isn't urbanized and hasn't really been growing, and would probably be a better market for bus.

Spartanburg, while not politically favored (being in the wrong state) gets you a large-ish metro with high industrial wages (BMW, Michelin, etc) and so can "pay for itself" (and for the track-miles betwen Gastonia and Hndrsnvl) via ticket revenues in a way that the trackmiles along I-40 never will (both because they're small *and* because they involve skipping either CLT or Greensboro)

Arlington wrote: So the map has correctly "dashed" the "Preserved/OOS" Tuxedo-Landrum part, but should have also dashed the Hndrsnvl-Tuxedo part (which, by your description is also Preserved/OOS)

That is correct. NCDOT has not updated their maps much lately....

Arlington wrote: OK, you've sold me. The Saluda Grade seems the right path over which to run passenger service, with my guess being that NS would be thrilled to have a stable customer and state sponsor for re-opening it.

Yes, I do think NS would like to reopen the Grade _if_ they thought they could make money on it. I am getting the feeling that NS is uncomfortable with 90 miles of their main being on leased tracks (the NCRR from downtown Charlotte to the Greensboro passenger station). NS has been aggressive in preserving their alternative routes that are not currently in use (the line from Charlotte--Mocksville--Winston-Salem) and the Saluda route 'just in case.' NS was not at all cooperative when Charlotte wanted to run commuter rail on 25 miles of the line from Charlotte to Winston (take that with a grain of salt, I am not an insider and I suspect their was a high degree of incompetence on the part of the local transit agency as well). I suspect they might have similar attitudes about the Saluda Grade as well.

Arlington wrote: Extending beyond CLT to Gastonia, Hndrsnvl and Ashville hits decent sized areas that have grown (like any part of NC that is growing) powered by migrating Northeasterners. Connecting them to Charlotte reinforces Charlotte's role as the dominant trading city and reinforces the NCRR (for its whole length) as NC's economic spine.

Looking at growth and density maps, the stretch along Morgenton-Hickory-Statesville (along I-40) isn't urbanized and hasn't really been growing, and would probably be a better market for bus.

I agree with both of these things. The route west of Salisbury is the core of declining furniture production, high unemployment and slow growth (but the upside of that is that there is not a bunch of freight on the line anymore). The route through SC has more people (although the tracks don't run through much I would consider to be high growth until you get South of Spartanburg), but also a great deal more freight traffic. I don't think NS is going to be eager to share those tracks. The bonus of the Spartanburg / Saluda route is that it runs through much more affluent tourist / retiree destinations South of Asheville (Flat Rock, Hendersonville and Tryon), while the Salisbury line (east of Asheville) is essentially just forest or industrial decay for nearly the whole ride to Asheville (Black Mountain excepted).

Even if Saluda were an active line, it's highly problematic as a passenger route. Tuxedo to Landrum might not be the Old Fort Loops, but it is very serpentine, and then there's the grade that Mr. Roberts mentioned. No train's going that way in a hurry. It's 67 miles from the Biltmore station in Asheville (where NCDOT wants to put any new Asheville service) to Spartanburg. In 1964 (latest info I have at hand), it took SOU's Carolina Special 2.5 hours to cover that distance (26.8mph average speed). And then you'd have to get to Charlotte, or Raleigh or wherever after that. In comparison, the Asheville Special (until it ended) was carded at 4 hours for 139 miles (34.75mph average speed), Biltmore to Salisbury. Both those trains had a number of intermediate stops, but they provide us a baseline. Operationally, I don't think a train on either route makes much sense. In short, given where Asheville is and given railroad infrastructure that we have, only a bus makes sense. Actually, two buses. One to Salisbury and one to Spartanburg.

As to Southern Railway's question about the survival of the Asheville Special, I think the answer has two parts. First, I-40 wasn't built until the '60's, so the train was more time-competitive until then. Second, any railroad that stayed out of Amtrak was required to continue running their trains for a certain period (5 years, IIRC), to prevent them from staying out in order to dump the trains in a hurry. I think SOU dropped the Piedmont, Asheville Special and Lynchburg local as soon as the law allowed. Only the Crescent still ran when SOU exited the passenger biz.

And I thought I had remembered something about this, so looked it up to confirm. NS sold the Saluda line from Asheville to Tuxedo (along with the Brevard branch and the line connecting Asheville to the GSMR at Dillsboro) to Blue Ridge Southern (a WATCO sub) last year. While that doesn't preclude them from buying it back (the exemption application doesn't contain any mention of retained trackage rights), it probably suggests that NS doesn't foresee reopening Saluda Grade anytime soon.

Station Aficionado wrote:And I thought I had remembered something about this, so looked it up to confirm. NS sold the Saluda line from Asheville to Tuxedo (along with the Brevard branch and the line connecting Asheville to the GSMR at Dillsboro) to Blue Ridge Southern (a WATCO sub) last year. While that doesn't preclude them from buying it back (the exemption application doesn't contain any mention of retained trackage rights), it probably suggests that NS doesn't foresee reopening Saluda Grade anytime soon.

Ok. A Gastonia terminus it is then.

To switch topics, over the past few years, we've seen a decline in ridership at the overcrowded Raleigh station, but an even bigger increase at nearby Cary. The assumption has been that riders who formerly used Raleigh have switched to the less-crowded Cary (which has more plentiful parking). In FY14, this pattern reversed, with a small decline at Cary (87,548 vs. 88,669 in FY13) that was offset by a slightly larger increase at Raleigh (161,342 vs. 159,584). Given the small absolute numbers involved, this could just be statistical noise, but I had expected the pattern to continue until the new Raleigh Union Station opens. In any event, Raleigh/Cary continues to knock on the door of 250,000 in annual ridership. I'd expect to see a pop in that number when the Raleigh station does open.