WILMINGTON — The goal to bring passenger rail service to the greater Wilmington area has been discussed for years.
In the spring, North Carolina Department of Transportation released the Southeastern North Carolina Passenger Rail Feasibility Study. It indicated that, since 2005, costs have risen significantly to re-establish passenger rail between Wilmington and Raleigh.
Once slated to be between $65 and $185 million, today it would run upward of $810 million. Estimated Wilmington riders rose from 45,000 two decades ago to 80,000 or more as well.
A Wilmington-to-Raleigh route would include stops in Clayton, Selma, Goldsboro and Wilmington. At least two more locations would be hashed out in a detailed service plan, decided upon further along in the process.
A new station and tracks would need to be constructed in Wilmington, which the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization has been discussing in recent years. It would be built near the new multimodal transportation station and WMPO headquarters — the latter of which is under construction at 525 N. 4th St. in the Brooklyn Arts District. These costs are included in the study’s budget, though upfit for other stops on the eastern route are not.
Trains are expected to run 79 miles per hour and the study looked at potentially three round trips a day, with the goal to first put two in place and add in a third; frequencies will be adjusted as service becomes operational. It could be up and running in the next decade if funding is procured.
As of April, NCDOT pursued federal funding and already submitted an application to the Federal Railroad Administration for the Raleigh-to-Wilmington and Raleigh-to-Fayetteville corridors to be included in the newly created Corridor Identification and Development Program (CID); it funds intercity passenger rail.
According to NCDOT, it’s chosen Stantec as the primary phase 1 consultant.
“We anticipate completing phase 1 for the Corridor Identification and Development program in late 2025,” Liz Macam, communications officer for the rail and integrated mobility divisions, said.
Here is the original story, published earlier this year:
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