Full passenger train service to resume in NC for the first time since COVID-19 pandemic
Passenger trains in North Carolina will soon be running at their full schedule for the first time since travel was curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic last spring.
Starting April 5, the N.C. Department of Transportation and Amtrak will resume a third daily round trip of the Piedmont train between Raleigh and Charlotte. Southbound train No. 77 will leave Raleigh at 3 p.m., arriving in Charlotte at 6:10 p.m., while northbound train No. 78 will make the return trip starting at 7 p.m., ending in Raleigh at 10:11 p.m.
NCDOT canceled two of the three round trips of the Piedmont last March, when the coronavirus pandemic brought most travel to a halt. The third round trip was suspended in May, leaving only the Carolinian train making daily runs between North Carolina’s two largest cities.
The Piedmont also makes stops in Cary, Durham, Burlington, Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury and Kannapolis.
The state has gradually restored train service as demand for travel has rebounded. NCDOT resumed one daily round-trip of the Piedmont in August, then added a second in December. Since September, ridership on the Piedmont increased about 50% by the end of February, though it remains half where it was before the pandemic.
“The data on ridership is trending up,” said Jason Orthner, director of NCDOT’s Rail Division. “All the numbers, all the trends, look good for bringing back the service on April 5.”
Adding trains also creates a bump in ridership, by making it more convenient, Orthner said.
“Frequency is obviously something that really plays into people’s decisions,” he said. “It’s important to provide folks with flexibility throughout the day.”
The return to full service doesn’t change the measures put in place to prevent spread of the coronavirus. In addition to extra cleaning and disinfecting, the trains are operating at a little more than half capacity to allow passengers to remain apart from each other, and masks are required on board. For details, go to www.ncbytrain.org/.
Meanwhile, Amtrak announced this week that it will resume daily service on all its long-distance trains this spring, including four that pass through North Carolina. Amtrak says the combination of growing demand and additional funding from Congress in the COVID-19 relief bill approved by Congress this week means the trains will be back to their normal schedules before the summer travel season.
They include the Crescent, which runs between New York and New Orleans with stops in Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury, Charlotte and Gastonia. It will again operate daily starting June 7, after being cut back to three days a week during the pandemic.
The Silver Star and Silver Meteor trains between New York and Florida and the Palmetto between New York and Savannah will also resume their daily runs on June 7. The Silver Star passes through the Triangle, making stops in Raleigh and Cary.
This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 4:38 PM.
