Gribblenation

2023 and the first half of 2024 have seen continued growth in North Carolina's passenger rail system.  From increased daily trains from Raleigh to Charlotte, federal funds for studying additional corridors, and receiving a historic grant to begin the construction of high-speed rail between Raleigh and Richmond, the last 18 months have been a flurry of activity at NCDOT's Rail Division.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg. As ridership and routes increase - the engine of North Carolina passenger rail trains will become a more common sight. (Adam Prince) Increased Passenger Train Service: On July 10, 2023, a fourth Piedmont round-trip rail service between Raleigh and Charlotte commenced.  The four Piedmont trains plus the daily Carolinian (to Washington, DC, and New York) bring the total of trains serving the two cities daily to five. The current daily Piedmont and Carolinian schedule between Charlotte and Raleigh (NCDOT) The result was over 641,000 passengers utilized ...

The Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor received a significant boost last week with NCDOT being awarded a $57.9 million grant towards the Raleigh-to-Richmond leg of the corridor.   The money will go towards preliminary design for the entire route, preliminary engineering for returning missing tracks north of Ridgeway to the Virginia State Line, and funding for removing at-grade crossings in Wake County. The high-speed rail corridor between Raleigh and Richmond is along CSX's S-Line.  The line is currently used in some areas for freight traffic.  10 miles of the line are abandoned in North Carolina and another 65 in Virginia.  Both states used prior grant money to negotiate a purchase of the abandoned right-of-way in 2019. When complete the corridor will allow for trains that can go at speeds up to 110 mph.  It would also cut the rail travel time between Raleigh and Richmond by two hours. NCDOT has stated that the tracks could be fully active anywhere between...

  It’s taken about 10 years to reach this point, but the latest significant milestone in the replacement of the Wittpenn Bridge in northern New Jersey was announced recently as the new Wittpenn Bridge is now open to traffic. Crossing the new Wittpenn Bridge (NJ Route 7) across the Hackensack River near Jersey City. The upper photos show the westbound crossing; the lower photos show the eastbound crossing Both the old and new bridges span the Hackensack River near Jersey City, NJ in a heavily industrialized and heavily trafficked area in the New York metropolitan area. The bridges are located about three miles west of the Hoboken portal of the Holland Tunnel and this area has long been seen as an important crossroads point for both road & rail traffic in and around the region. The original highway bridge at this site was built in 1930 and featured a central vertical lift span along with a narrow four-lane roadway that may have been considered “modern” by Great Depression-era sta...

With the hopeful prospects of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passing, Amtrak has its sights on a major network expansion - and North Carolina is poised to see a significant expansion in service and cities served. In addition to the already planned Raleigh-to-Richmond segment of the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor , expansion from Raleigh southeast to Wilmington and westwards from Salisbury to Asheville are being looked at for new service.  These two plans are not anything new, NCDOT began studying these corridors in the early-2000s , but this is the first time a serious funding mechanism could put these two in place. The 2021 Infrastructure Bill commits $66 billion to Amtrak for expansion and infrastructure improvements and over $911 million to North Carolina for public transportation.  While this amount is not solely directed to or will cover the entirety of these projects, they will be a massive step forward. So let's take a look at the two proposed rout...

  The Pier Covered Bridge in Newport, New Hampshire is a bit of a rarity, as not many covered bridges that were originally built for use by railroads are still in existence today. There are only a handful railroad covered bridges still around today, two which happen to be located in Newport (the Wright's Covered Bridge is the other). Also known as the Chandler Station Covered Bridge, the 216 foot long bridge over the Sugar River was originally built in 1907 as one of fifteen railroad covered bridges that once followed the Newport section of the Claremont and Concord Railroad , which was part of the Boston and Maine Railroad system. This makes it the longest covered railroad bridge in the world still in existence. The bridge was built in a double Town-Pratt lattice truss design and was constructed to replace an earlier covered bridge at the same location. The double Town-Pratt lattice trusses with laminated arches were long favored for construction on the branch lines of the Bosto...