The Federal Railroad Administration has awarded a nearly $300 million grant to North Carolina’s Department of Transportation to help improve passenger rail service in the Piedmont.
The federal grant supports the Piedmont Corridor Safety Program. It’s focused on modernizing and improving safety and shortening travel times by rail from Raleigh to Charlotte. Greensboro and High Point are among the stops in between.
The money will fund a host of infrastructure improvements in Guilford, Durham and Wake counties. Among them are adding roughly six miles of secondary track. That’ll allow trains to pass each other more easily, creating the capacity for additional trains on the railroad. In addition, highway bridges will replace several standard railroad crossings. Rail Division Director Jason Orthner says these changes benefit passengers as well as vehicle travelers.
"The driver won't be approaching an at-grade railroad crossing where they'd have to be wary of the warning devices activating while they're proceeding through the crossing," says Orthner. "There will be no horns needed to be blown by the train because the only reason the horns blow is to warn drivers of an approaching train."
Orthner says construction is slated to begin in the next two to three years.
NC By Train ridership has steadily grown from 463,000 passengers in 2019 to just under 740,000 last year — the highest number in the service’s 35-year history.