Coronavirus pandemic reduces passenger train service in North Carolina again
Passenger train service in North Carolina is being cut back again because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Starting Monday, Amtrak has reduced the number of trains it runs between New York and Florida. The Silver Star and the Silver Meteor, which both make stops in North Carolina, have gone from daily round-trips each to operating on different days of the week, resulting in a single train between New York and Miami each day instead of two.
The Silver Star, which stops in Rocky Mount, Raleigh, Cary, Southern Pines and Hamlet, now departs New York headed south on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and goes north from Miami on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The Silver Meteor, which stops in Rocky Mount and Fayetteville, now leaves New York on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and heads north from Miami on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Though the two trains begin and end in the same places and share many of the same stops, the Silver Star takes a longer route to include Raleigh, Columbia, South Carolina, and Tampa. Together, the two trains carried 743,461 passengers in the fiscal year ending last Sept. 30, up 5.4% from the year before.
The coronavirus outbreak and the measures to try to contain it severely reduced travel of all kinds this spring. Passenger traffic through Raleigh-Durham International Airport was off more than 96% in April and has made only modest gains since then. Even highway travel fell off; by early May, the N.C. Department of Transportation reported that gas tax revenue was down 40%.
Amtrak has been hit hard as well. In late May, the railroad’s president and CEO William Flynn told members of Congress that passenger demand was running about 5% of normal. A swift rebound is unlikely, Flynn said.
“We know from recent polls that approximately half of those surveyed expressed reluctance to ride a train in the next six months, and that more than a third said it would be more than a year before they would do so,” Flynn wrote in a letter to Congress. “Most demand predictions anticipate a second wave of COVID-19 impacts in the fall, and that further complicates any forecast.”
Amtrak estimates ridership will remain 50% below pre-COVID levels in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, Flynn wrote.
The letter asks for supplemental federal funding in part to keep long-distance trains like the Silver Star and the Silver Meteor running even at reduced levels next year. Even if Congress comes through, Amtrak may further consolidate its Florida trains with the Palmetto, which runs between New York and Savannah, Georgia, and stops in Rocky Mount, Wilson, Selma and Fayetteville.
Reducing Amtrak’s long-distance service, which reaches towns and cities in largely rural areas across the country, has always been a politically touchy subject. Already, U.S. Senators of both parties from states like Montana, New Mexico and West Virginia have responded to Flynn’s letter with questions about how Amtrak might retain daily long-distance trains next year or restore them after the pandemic has subsided.
The reduced demand for train travel has already forced NCDOT and Amtrak to cut back on service within the state. The Piedmont, which was operating three round-trips between Raleigh and Charlotte daily, has been suspended. Only the Carolinian, which runs between Charlotte and New York, is covering that route today.
