Charlotte Gateway Station and Railroad Improvements

[orulz]

On 3/2/2021 at 9:08 AM, drumsy said:

City approves DOT agreement, Salisbury Station project could begin next year: https://www.salisburypost.com/2021/03/02/construction-of-additional-platform-underground-tunnel-at-salisbury-station-expected-to-begin-next-year/

I am going to seem like Debbie Downer but I am frustrated that NCDOT is not doing more to coordinate this (as well as the platform/overpass project at Kannapolis) with their purchase of new trains for the Piedmont.

Hear me out.

The lowest hanging fruit for making the journey time on the Piedmont faster is station dwell times. Those trains can stay stopped at stations for a frustratingly long time. On a busy day, dozens or even a hundred passengers can board and disembark at a station. Subways can  handle crowds this big, or bigger, in 30 seconds or less, with ease. But the Piedmont can't, for two reasons. While subways have platforms that are the same height as the train floors, and open every door at every station, the Piedmont makes passengers haul their luggage up steep, narrow stairs through just one or two doors that are opened by the conductors.

Now, Raleigh - and soon Charlotte - have high platforms, but they did that by putting their platforms on sidings, which is expensive. Plus, those stations actually don't matter as much because they are at the end of the line for the Piedmont (and in Charlotte's case, the Carolinian too.) So it doesn't really matter as much if passengers take a while to get on board there: the train can still leave on time. But for these mid-line stations, it's pretty important to get the trains in and out of there as quickly as possible. It could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to straighten curves enough and raise speeds to save three minutes on a schedule, whereas getting the train in and out of Salisbury three minutes faster is a much, much easier problem.

The traditional reason they haven't done this is that oversize freight trains can't operate next to high platforms, and this line does occasionally carry oversize freight. A new development, however, is train-mounted retractable gap fillers, which extend from the door to create a bridge for passengers to walk over. These allow the platform to be set back from the tracks, leaving enough space for oversize freight. Brightline in Florida introduced this technology to the US market.

NC has $157m in grant money awarded over the last two years to spend on new passenger equipment. Amtrak is also in the process of procuring new trains to replace their aging Amfleet equipment. If Amtrak and NCDOT made it a priority, they could coordinate the purchase of these trains with these platform upgrade projects and trim some time from the schedule. But it doesn't seem to be. US Passenger Rail just seems to suffer from a frustrating case of inability to connect the dots. So we wind up spending millions, or billions, of dollars - but stop short of doing what it takes to have a really optimized, first rate passenger rail system. Sigh.

[JacksonH]

Trains to the mountains (Asheville) and to the beach (Wilmington), yes!  For those of us who hate wasting time behind the wheel, and dealing with the stress and aggravation of driving, trains are a godsend.

https://charlotte.axios.com/253168/from-charlotte-to-asheville-and-wilmington-on-amtraks-new-proposed-train-routes/

[Blue_Devil]

4 hours ago, JacksonH said:

Trains to the mountains (Asheville) and to the beach (Wilmington), yes!  For those of us who hate wasting time behind the wheel, and dealing with the stress and aggravation of driving, trains are a godsend.

https://charlotte.axios.com/253168/from-charlotte-to-asheville-and-wilmington-on-amtraks-new-proposed-train-routes/

The Train to Ashville confuses me. Is it a direct line from Salisbury to Asheville, or will there be a train from Charlotte to Asheville with a stop in Salisbury?  

[Merthecat]

15 minutes ago, Blue_Devil said:

The Train to Ashville confuses me. Is it a direct line from Salisbury to Asheville, or will there be a train from Charlotte to Asheville with a stop in Salisbury?  

I think that would depend on routing of train services, but the tracks in question do branch off from Salisbury.

[kermit]

On 4/1/2021 at 1:44 PM, Blue_Devil said:

The Train to Ashville confuses me. Is it a direct line from Salisbury to Asheville, or will there be a train from Charlotte to Asheville with a stop in Salisbury?  

You gotta go through Salisbury to get to Asheville on the train. I doubt trains from Asheville will terminate in Salisbury however. I would bet that Asheville trains will mostly be run-troughs from Wilmington / Raleigh. Charlotte trips to Asheville are going to be complicated, and probably require a change of trains in Salisbury (or perhaps High Point since a Salsbury stop will require an Asheville bound train to back out of station ). The two hour detour for Charlotte residents to go to Salisbury first will make it a very inefficient trip.

"Back in the day" (towards the end of Asheville passenger service) Southern did terminate their Asheville train in Salisbury (so everybody transferred). I rode it as a very small child in 1973ish and still remember switching trains.

I am just not optimistic about this route. The Salisbury issue, the super long trip up the Blue Ridge (which is not particularly scenic), and a medocre Asheville station location (Biltmore Village), means I can't see it being much use to anyone other than tourists taking the train once on a whim. I doubt they will take the train a second time since it will be so slow.

Edited April 5, 2021 by kermit

[Third Strike]

New Amtrak national map. 
 

I like it. Though, I wouldn’t mind service between Columbia and Charlotte. 

[Blue_Devil]

3 minutes ago, Third Strike said:

New Amtrak national map. 
 

I like it. Though, I wouldn’t mind service between Columbia and Charlotte. 

It would make a lot of sense, because then you have Charlotte straight to Miami.

[Nick2]

On 4/1/2021 at 5:12 PM, Blue_Devil said:

It would make a lot of sense, because then you have Charlotte straight to Miami.

The route between raleigh and columbia makes literally 0 sense. It should be routed through gboro and clt to columbia from raleigh

[carolina1792]

1 minute ago, Nick2 said:

The route between raleigh and columbia makes literally 0 sense. It should be routed through gboro and clt to columbia from raleigh

Agreed. Focus on the CLT to Greenville to Atlanta high speed route and South Carolina should invest in a Greenville to Columbia to  Charleston rail route but South Carolina is so terribly not interested in that unfortunately. 

[Desert Power]

I wonder if this enhanced service will make Salisbury trains more commutable to Charlotte (really just a matter of timings/frequency).

[Third Strike]

Looks like there’s an official push for commuter/regional rail in the Triangle. This rail line would run on the NC Railroad from Durham to Clayton.
 

https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/proposed-commuter-rail-would-connect-triangle-municipalities-from-durham-to-clayton/

I honestly hope a Mecklenburg/Cabarrus/Rowan line on the NC Railroad happens some day. By far the most realistic rail corridor in the metro where commuter/regional rail is possible. 

[orulz]

On 4/1/2021 at 2:02 PM, kermit said:

I am just not optimistic about this route. The Salisbury issue, the super long trip up the Blue Ridge (which is not particularly scenic), and a medocre Asheville station location (Biltmore Village), means I can't see it being much use to anyone other than tourists taking the train once on a whim. I doubt they will take the train a second time since it will be so slow.

The loops between Old Fort and Black Mountain are actually pretty scenic. But the route is very, very slow as well. There is currently no through freight over this line, only locals serving Asheville-area industries - so if there ever were a time that it made sense to give passenger service a go, then this is it.

 

[jthomas]

A couple of tidbits in the news the past few days:

Biden gives shout-out to Charlotte-Atlanta HSR at Amtrak 50th

Gateway Station update from NCDOT

[videtur quam contuor]

Is there a website or app that provides real time progress for passenger service trains? Something like Flightaware for planes. Maybe with notifications of slow progress, speed problems, but especially for progress of trains in motion and ETA.

[cowboy_wilhelm]

32 minutes ago, tarhoosier said:

Is there a website or app that provides real time progress for passenger service trains? Something like Flightaware for planes. Maybe with notifications of slow progress, speed problems, but especially for progress of trains in motion and ETA.

https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html

[kermit]

[not related to Gateway construction]

Amtrak has changed the schedule of the Crescent to account for increased delays from freight mostly on the Atlanta to New Orleans portion of the route. The Southbound schedule is not very different than the current schedule (departs 10 minutes later, still in the middle of the night) but the Northbound schedule is substantially changed. The Northbound Crescent is now scheduled to depart Charlotte at 5:31am and arrive in New York Moinihan at 6:14pm (previously it was scheduled for a 2pm ish arrival).

This is an interesting change for Charlotte riders. If the train can be consistently on time on this schedule then Charlotte effectively gains a second (day) New York train, granted one that is not much different than the Carolinian in terms of scheduling (the 80 departs Charlotte at 6:45am and scheduled for New York at 8:38pm). This is a plus for Charlotte since the Carolinian was frequently sold out pre Covid. However, the change will create occasional Charlotte platform space (and NCRR track) conflicts. 

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/analysis-lengthened-crescent-schedule-diminishes-its-usefulness/

*Personally I would rather board a train in the middle of the night than at the crack of dawn, but I am guessing I am in the minority

*Even with the schedule change I’ll bet the Northbound Crescent is not going to have reliable enough OTP to be useful for Charlotte-Greensboro commuters

 

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by kermit

[jthomas]

44 minutes ago, kermit said:

[not related to Gateway construction]

Amtrak has changed the schedule of the Crescent to account for increased delays from freight mostly on the Atlanta to New Orleans portion of the route. The Southbound schedule is not very different than the current schedule (departs 10 minutes later, still in the middle of the night) but the Northbound schedule is substantially changed. The Northbound Crescent is now scheduled to depart Charlotte at 5:31am and arrive in New York Moinihan at 6:14pm (previously it was scheduled for a 2pm ish arrival).

This is an interesting change for Charlotte riders. If the train can be consistently on time on this schedule then Charlotte effectively gains a second (day) New York train, granted one that is not much different than the Carolinian in terms of scheduling (the 80 departs Charlotte at 6:45am and scheduled for New York at 8:38pm). This is a plus for Charlotte since the Carolinian was frequently sold out pre Covid. However, the change will create occasional Charlotte platform space (and NCRR track) conflicts. 

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/analysis-lengthened-crescent-schedule-diminishes-its-usefulness/

*Personally I would rather board a train in the middle of the night than at the crack of dawn, but I am guessing I am in the minority

*Even with the schedule change I’ll bet the Northbound Crescent is not going to have reliable enough OTP to be useful for Charlotte-Greensboro commuters

 

 

IF, and it's a big if because Amtrak, the Crescent can stay on time with this schedule, this is a big win for NC riders IMO. Especially for me here in Greensboro - 7:29 is a great departure time, and this train is nearly two hours faster to Washington than the Carolinian (which takes 8 hours to plod from Greensboro to DC). This makes the train a very competitive and attractive option for travel to DC.

It's also interesting to note just how slow this schedule is. As an example, Charlotte-Greensboro northbound is timetabled at 1h33m for the Piedmonts and 1h39m for the Carolinian. This schedule puts the Crescent at 1h58m for the same trip.

[videtur quam contuor]

Thanks for this. When I wake at 2:50 AM and listen in the silence a train horn in the distance may be this one.

[kermit]

On 6/9/2021 at 2:11 PM, tarhoosier said:

Thanks for this. When I wake at 2:50 AM and listen in the silence a train horn in the distance may be this one.

It may be a product of my imagination but I am pretty sure the horn from the Amtrak GE Genesis locomotive used on the Crescent is audibly different than the horn on the various NS freight locomotives. I _think_ I can tell the difference when I heard trains from my house between 1 and 3am.

Edited June 12, 2021 by kermit

[videtur quam contuor]

I would like for those who have this experience closer to hand to comment.  My experience has been similar to @kermit and I hear different tones (?) and for sure when I lived in Dilworth with the bedroom window open in the wee hours there *seemed* to be differences though the direction and ground clutter, atmosphere and everything else plays a part. 

I am now almost two miles further away from my previous location so uncertainty increases as sound quality decreases. Those of you in NoDa or Belmont or other railroad adjacent locations, is this true?

[ajfunder]

8 hours ago, kermit said:

It may me a product of my imagination but I am pretty sure the horn from the Amtrak GE Genesis locomotive used on the Crescent is audibly different than the horn on the various NS freight locomotives. I _think_ I can tell the difference when I heard trains from my house between 1 and 3am.

They definitely are different. Different chimes and tuning. There are many in the railfan community who collect different types and can tell you what model just based on sound. I have many useless skills but this is one I have yet to master haha.

 

 

[cowboy_wilhelm]

On 6/9/2021 at 3:14 PM, kermit said:

It may me a product of my imagination but I am pretty sure the horn from the Amtrak GE Genesis locomotive used on the Crescent is audibly different than the horn on the various NS freight locomotives. I _think_ I can tell the difference when I heard trains from my house between 1 and 3am.

 

On 6/9/2021 at 11:30 PM, ajfunder said:

They definitely are different. Different chimes and tuning. There are many in the railfan community who collect different types and can tell you what model just based on sound. I have many useless skills but this is one I have yet to master haha.

Search "K5LA" on YouTube. *cough, cough* Who said that? I don't know what that is.

[nakers2]

Haven’t seen a lot of photo updates from this project, figured I would add one from my balcony.

[kermit]

6 minutes ago, nakers2 said:

Haven’t seen a lot of photo updates from this project, figured I would add one from my balcony.

That high platform is supersexy!

[Hushpuppy321]

37 minutes ago, kermit said:

That high platform is supersexy!

High Platform means Level Boarding & Faster Loading\Unloading right...?