The proposed corridor would provide improvements to the existing state-supported carolinian service between charlotte, NC, and washington, D.C. (with existing service continuing north to new york,…

The North Carolina Department of Transportation Rail Division received a $500,000 Cooperative Agreement award from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) under the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail program (CFDA 20.326). This funding will support the development of a Service Development Plan (SDP) for a proposed rail corridor that would improve the existing Carolinian intercity passenger rail service between Charlotte, NC and Washington, D.C. Key project activities include creating a project performance plan, developing existing planning materials, drafting a statement of work, establishing a project schedule and budget, and producing the deliverables necessary to advance the corridor project to the next phase of the SDP process. The proposed corridor enhancements aim to address infrastructure capacity constraints, increase service frequency, and reduce end-to-end travel times by constructing and rehabilitating a more direct rail alignment between Raleigh, NC and Petersburg, VA. The project outcome will be a comprehensive project description to guide the subsequent SDP development efforts.

The proposed corridor would provide improvements to the existing state-supported carolinian service between charlotte, NC, and washington, D.C. (with existing service continuing north to new york, NY), by improving adding services in greensboro, winston-salem, high point, raleigh, durham, salisbury, and burlington, NC, and petersburg, richmond, fredericksburg, andalexandria, VA, by addressing infrastructure capacity constraints. Improvements include constructing rehabilitating a partiallyabandoned alignment between raleigh, NC, and petersburg, VA, that is more direct than the existing routing through rockymount, NC, potentially shaving more than an hour off the end-to-end travel time. Using service development plan (SDP) sowframework, the corridor sponsor will develop a project performance plan (task 1.1), existing planning and developmentmaterials (task 2.1), statement of work (task 2.2), approved project schedule (task 2.3), approved project budget (task 2.4).the outcome of this project will be the project description for CID step 2, to perform the necessary work to complete an SDP. Theproposed corridor would serve the charlotte, winston-salem, greensboro-high point, lynchburg, charlottesville, andwashington, DC metro areas and rural communities in between.