Heard a brief news report yesterday concerning establishing commuter service between these southern towns. Didn’t hear any input from Norfolk Southern who happens to own the rails (R line, Piedmont Division) .The talking heads seem to think it’s a done deal because the infrastructure is already in place.
Most - like 75 - 80% ? - of that 65+/- mile run would be in SC, which has no commuter rail history or state agency as far as I know - correct ? Although NC does have a very active passenger agency in NCDOT, why would they spend money that would be going mostly to SC, when there’s still so much to do in NC ? Unless it’s because that can alleviate some congestion on NC’s portion of I-77 between the 2 cities ?
What is the nature of the NS line ? Single or double track, significant grades, traffic volumes, etc. ?
- Paul North.
[Edited Mon. 07 March 2011 9:40 AM to fix typos - PDN]
It’s all single track with a few sidings thrown in. The rail between the two cities doesn’t take the most direct route either as it veers off of I-77 through Chester, then crosses back over 77 near Ridgeway then again at the Farrow Road exit.
They would have to build stations along the way and the one exisiting station in Columbia is on the CSX. I guess they’d have to add a stop at Pineville to tie into the existing light rail, too.
I muist have been asleep when I heard about this because the Columbia mayor was talking likee most everything they needed was already there.
Apparently some SC officials are traveling to NC today to discuss this further, as part of the expanding southwards Eastern rail passenger corridor. Notably, this article calls it “inter-urban” rail - does he know what that term means to some of us ? And, it also discusses expansion through other SC cities to the Myrtle Beach area (together with quite a few “slams” against Florida’s recent cancellation of its HSR project) :
Some other links to or about the reports on this:
From WISTV-10.com - “Council to discuss possible Columbia-Charlotte commuter rail” - has a map (but no ‘legend’ or key for it) and more details of SCDOT’s study at - http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=14156702 and at - http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12525872
“Train Service to Charlotte” thread - the Original Poster says it was touted as “High Sped [sic] Light Rail” (!) - http://www.friendsofsc.com/forums/showthread.php?p=151275
Another thread on this here - “Columbia-Charlotte Interurban”, but over on the “Transit” Forum instead: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS