RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Department of Transportation is launching a feasibility study to consider the possibility of operating passenger rail service beween the Raleigh-Durham area and Greenville, N.C., the Charlotte Observer reports.
The $250,000 study, to be funded by a federal grant, is one of several considering expansion of the state’s passenger service to smaller communities, such as Wilmington and Asheville. Both those communities are among potential destinations included in Amtrak’s “Connects US” plan for new passenger corridors.
The study will take about 18 months and will consider how Raleigh-Greenville service would work and what it would cost, as well as the coordination needed with CSX Transportation and other freight operators. Jason Orthner, head of the NCDOT Rail Division, said studies looking at service between Raleigh and Wilmington, and between Salisbury and Asheville, will be finished in the next six to eight months.
The state already operates three daily Piedmont round trips between Raleigh and Charlotte and subsidizes the daily Carolinian between Charlotte and New York City.
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