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America should strive for rail between cities of 500 miles or less, especially where highways and skies are at capacity such as from Raleigh Northward through the NE corridor.
Accommodating commuter service by freight companies should be doable for such limited scope areas like the Triangle.
On the subject of the coal transported in the above video, I remember 60 Minutes's story on Duke Energy's coal ash problem, and they said that a single coal fired electricity plant used a 2 mile long train of coal every day.
Nashville had the luxury of a virtually unused RR line that the commuter train could operate over. The Wake transit planners are fixated on the NCRR corridor, which carries a lot of trains already (hence the need for the second track, which Nashville didn't have to bother with). If the Wake line were going to Knightdale-Wendell-Zebulon instead of Garner-Clayton, the project would be a lot less expensive. To a lesser degree, that would be true if the line went to Wake Forest-Youngsville.
Reality is that with the exception of the NCRR corridor, RRs are private tax-paying businesses and are not compelled to do things that they don't want. There is very little in it for them to host passenger trains (one of the flaws of the concept of Amtrak since inception in 1971). In most cases in the U.S. where new passenger trains are successful, the RR has sold the line to a local agency or government.
Unit coal trains are typically 100 cars at 100 tons each. One such train a day in the summer might be about right for the largest coal plants that remain in operation (e.g. Duke Energy's Roxboro plant on Hyco Lake).
NCDOT is investigating adding a regional rail system from Sanford to Norlina with stops in Apex, Cary, Raleigh, Wake Forest using the newly acquire Seaboard Line. So there's two possible rail lines coming to Raleigh. S-Line for the most part will not share tracks with freight so that project should be much easier but the line is less populated than the Triangle Commuter Rail route.
Hang on. Virginia bought their portion of the S-line but NCDOT has not bought anything south of the border yet. NCDOT did receive a grant to buy the 10 miles that are abandoned or out of service between the state line and the town of Ridgeway. South of Ridgeway, CSX still owns the line and as far as I know has no intention of selling it. There are still active freight customers in the Henderson area, in particular. The SEHSR project to run long-distance passenger trains over the S-line will require track improvements between Raleigh and the Virginia line, but SEHSR by itself won't cause freight and passenger to run on separate tracks. In fact, the deal all along with CSX about SEHSR is that they'll be able to run freight trains over the rebuilt line.
The S-line commuter project would run no further north than Youngsville or possibly Franklinton. Again, track improvements will be required and it's more likely that you will see separation of freight and passenger tracks by virtue of this project... if it ever happens. The Wake Forest-Raleigh-Apex portion is more feasible than north of Wake Forest or south of Apex.
This project seems pretty pointless. Most of my driving in the Triangle is from Cary westward, but from my perspective, traffic congestion seems to be improved from 10+ years ago. It seems like traffic never fully got back to the same level it was pre-pandemic. If we have more WFH jobs moving forward, it makes this project look even more foolhardy.
This project seems pretty pointless. Most of my driving in the Triangle is from Cary westward, but from my perspective, traffic congestion seems to be improved from 10+ years ago. It seems like traffic never fully got back to the same level it was pre-pandemic. If we have more WFH jobs moving forward, it makes this project look even more foolhardy.
Well, if they are correct with the estimation of 1 million new residents by 2050....
27 years away, but that's not a long time.
Remember how far away 2030 sounded and now it's 6 3/4 years away.
I agree rail is not perfect for the Triangle.
But if new development was guided along it like in Charlotte today, it could enable a car-free lifestyle for those who want it and prevent more cars on existing highways...
That maintains the quality of life factor for all Triangileans by way of less gridlock and shorter drive times.
Did I just coin a new term for local residents? Triangileans, lol.
$3.1 billion - averaging 12K-18K riders/day, so using a 15K rider/day average, this works out $200K/rider. Nice perk for those who will be able to live in the high priced neighborhoods within walking distance of a train station (because if you have a commuter rail station in a neighborhood, it ramps up home values there).
Just use express busses and make use of the breakdown lanes as bus express lanes like they do in other cities and save the other 1.3 million of us from having to pay higher taxes for making life a little bit easier for the well-to-do that will be the only ones using this commuter rail.
Oh yeah, by the time this thing is finished, those folks won't want to use it as they'll find it more convenient to use their fully self-driving car to get to work while they read or watch whatever the successor to tiktok is at that time.
Commuter rail trains are always a money pit because they're expensive to operate and can never generate enough revenue on their own to cover operating costs without being heavily subsidized by local/state/federal governments.
Commuter rail trains are always a money pit because they're expensive to operate and can never generate enough revenue on their own to cover operating costs without being heavily subsidized by local/state/federal governments.
Yet roads can be used by individuals AND mass transit and can provide mass transit to areas where rail lines don't exist.
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