North Carolina NCDOT-Amtrak Carolinian Service

NCDOT brought a clearance test train into the Charlotte Gateway station area yesterday. Some photos are here:
https://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/topi ... nt=1843084

While the platform and tracks are done, we are still years away from a station building getting started (2025 is what folks are saying but that is optimistic)

They should take a lesson from the other Gateway Station (St. Louis). While the current station was being built, they threw up an “interim” replacement for St Louis Union Trailers. The interim station is now a crew/commissary building IIRC. I assume such a building in Charlotte would disappear with the construction of the permanent station, but they could get out of NS’s freight yard more quickly if they really wanted to.

Station Aficionado wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 8:36 pm They should take a lesson from the other Gateway Station (St. Louis)....... I assume such a building in Charlotte would disappear with the construction of the permanent station, but they could get out of NS’s freight yard more quickly if they really wanted to.

Who is "they"? The City of Charlotte or Amtrak? Neither has the funds by themselves to build anything, the City will wait until the USDOT provides funding for a new station. Amtrak will wait on the City to build it.

electricron wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 3:50 am Who is "they"? The City of Charlotte or Amtrak? Neither has the funds by themselves to build anything, the City will wait until the USDOT provides funding for a new station. Amtrak will wait on the City to build it.

The station building will be built by the PPP developer as part of a larger complex around the station site. The Pandemic has repeatedly delayed the larger project.

So will the station be usable without the building? Or will any service have to wait on the building?

MattW wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 9:49 am So will the station be usable without the building? Or will any service have to wait on the building?

Nope. There is currently no pedestrian access to the platform (it also lacks its canopy). There are no plans for service to begin at Gateway until the station building is finished at some vague point in the future. A temporary station building was briefly discussed after the last TIGER/BUILD grant which funding the track improvements and platform but all discussion of that has been dropped.

Why not a temporary Am shack? There might be a retired one available limiting structure costs. Predestrian access is still a problem. hy not get some FRA funds to do this simple action?

west point wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 8:00 pm Why not a temporary Am shack? There might be a retired one available limiting structure costs. Predestrian access is still a problem. hy not get some FRA funds to do this simple action?

Why not a trailer AmShack, like the one they used at BWI when that was being reconstructed? All they need is to build a platform and access up to the 'shack.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:18 am

west point wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 8:00 pm Why not a temporary Am shack? There might be a retired one available limiting structure costs. Predestrian access is still a problem. hy not get some FRA funds to do this simple action?

Why not a trailer AmShack, like the one they used at BWI when that was being reconstructed? All they need is to build a platform and access up to the 'shack.

Like, why not move the one that was used at BWI to that location?

Some interesting news in the Carolina's Association of Passenger Trains (CAPT) December newsletter:

he 4th additional Piedmont frequency between Charlotte and Raleigh is still planned for Spring of 2023. Operational and scheduling issues are now being addressed by Amtrak and the Rail Division of NC DOT.

This tidbit (without additional context) was the most shocking although it is certainly nothing more than loose talk:

Rail Division Director Jason Orthner says North Carolina is receptive to cooperative efforts with the South Carolina Department of Transportation on furthering the rail passenger experience in the Carolinas. Charlotte to Columbia service ideas have been shared recently between the Transportation Secretaries of both states. Both states also have interest in more frequent and higher speed service between Charlotte and Atlanta.

and on Charlotte Gateway station:

Work on the Gateway station building is expected to begin within a year, and completion and service beginning in 2026. That work has been delayed due to Charlotte Area Transit System which initially planned a Silver Line light rail stop parallel to the station platform. [my editorial take is delays have also been caused by the PPP partner becoming very hesitant to construct new office space in downtown Charlotte]

and the Charlotte passenger equipment maintenance facility and storage yard (its been complete for 5ish years (from ARRA funds) but has not been connected to ANY tracks until now):

The test train [NCDOT sent a Piedmont consist to test the Gateway station platform dimensions a couple weeks ago, I believe this was referenced in this thread above] also visited the new rail maintenance facility south of site which has now been connected to Norfolk Southern tracks . It's unclear when passenger trains will begin using the maintenance facility. Initially it will be the overnight home of the Carolinian for layover and servicing.

Elsewhere on their website they report that baggage cars returned to 79-80 at the end of November.

Back in November they cited some discussions at VADOT of a Norfolk-Raleigh service, but "not before 2030." They said "we want to get to the point where Norfolk passengers don't need to travel North to go South." As it would help maintain some service on the A-Line after the S-Line shortcut opens up I am all for it, but it is a very thin corridor.
http://www.captrail.org/

The Piedmont and Carolinian broke the record for highest ridership in 2022, hitting 522,000 passengers for the year. https://www.ncdot.gov/news/press-releas ... rship.aspx

New schedules for the Piedmont take effect July 10th with a new round trip and two "express" trains under 3 hours Raleigh-Charlotte.

I can’t find any documentation from NCDOT but according to the neighborhood association they are starting to plan for Phase 2 of the Charlotte passenger equipment maintenance facility. IIRC this will include extending the currently complete (but never used) storage yard tracks, adding a wash rack and indoor maintenance building.

This phase was always listed as ‘when funding is available’ so it makes sense this would be moving forward now.

The Phase 1 storage facility has been complete for a while but remains unused since its access is predicated on the completion of Gateway Station (which is being held up by the developer in the PPP project).

Edit: this appears to be a link to the NCDOT site plans.
https://up-bucket-0.s3.amazonaws.com/mo ... b769934b06

This is a substantial increase in capacity from the original phase 2 plans. Thee is much more storage (six tracks for 7-8 car trains), and much more shop capacity. Seems like NCDOT is changing some stuff up (this seems to be much more maintenance capacity than they have at Capitol Yards in Raleigh.

^ the more I look at the revised Charlotte maintenance facility plans, the more it feels like an initial investment for the 5-6 daily Charlotte to Washington trains planned for SEHSR over the S-Line.

Glad to see NCDOT working both ends of this improvement.

https://up-bucket-0.s3.amazonaws.com/mo ... c02b4f70e4

The Capitol Yards facility is space constrained--a trans-load facility immediately abuts it, so its likely justifiable to replace it with a facility at the other end of the Piedmont routing that could also service the Carolinian (once the Carolinian transitions from Amfleet to Airo equipment) and then use the Capitol Yards facility only for light servicing of trains that overnight in Raleigh.