NCDOT receives $80 million for new Piedmont train cars but will it accept the money?
The state Department of Transportation has received a federal grant that will allow it to replace aging engines and passenger cars on its Piedmont trains between Raleigh and Charlotte, but it’s not clear if the state will accept it.
The $80 million grant would pay for six new locomotives and 13 passenger cars. It follows an earlier $77 million federal grant NCDOT received for 13 passenger cars for the Piedmont, meaning the state could eventually have a fleet of 26 new cars.
But NCDOT applied for the grants before the coronavirus outbreak sharply reduced ridership on the Piedmont, and a spokeswoman for NCDOT’s Rail Division said Tuesday that the state is “reviewing the grant, its requirements and our rail needs” before accepting.
“A review of the grant requirements is underway to ensure NCDOT can move forward in a timely manner,” Katie Trout wrote in an email.
Asked to elaborate, NCDOT released a statement late Tuesday that read: “COVID-19 has, we believe, temporarily changed almost everything. NCDOT’s Rail Division is taking time to evaluate the ‘new normal’ before taking the next steps. No one yet knows what the long-term impacts of COVID-19 will be, so it is premature to discuss frequency changes.”
Before COVID-19, Amtrak and the state operated three round-trip Piedmont trains a day between Raleigh and Charlotte, with stops in Cary, Durham, Burlington, Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury and Kannapolis. NCDOT has planned to add a fourth round-trip in 2023, to coincide with the opening of a new Amtrak station in Uptown Charlotte.
But with people staying home during the pandemic, Piedmont service was suspended May 17. For now, the Carolinian, which normally runs daily between Charlotte and New York City on equipment owned by Amtrak, is operating one round trip a day between Charlotte and Raleigh until demand returns.
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican seeking re-election this year, announced the $80 million grant for the Piedmont late Friday, citing his support. U.S. Rep. David Price, a Democrat from Chapel Hill, sent out his own announcement Tuesday, noting that he had helped secure funding for the grants program as a member of a key House subcommittee.
“As our state grows and congestion increases on our highways, our transportation infrastructure must expand to reflect these new realities,” Price said in a written statement. “... NCDOT has long recognized that giving travelers multiple transportation options creates benefits for our economy, the environment, and our quality of life.”
The grants would help NCDOT buy new passenger cars for the first time. All 19 cars in the Piedmont fleet — 14 passenger cars and five baggage/cafe cars — were built in the 1950s and 1960s; they were bought used and refurbished.
NCDOT planned to do the same with nine rail cars it bought from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus after the circus shut down in 2017. The state paid $383,000 for the cars, which were then stored on a stretch of state-owned track in the woods in Nash County.
The first federal grant, for $77 million, to buy new passenger cars prompted NCDOT to re-evaluate its plans for the circus cars. Asked about them Tuesday, Trout said only that NCDOT is “completing an asset review to update the department’s plan for rail resources.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 5:30 AM with the headline "NCDOT receives $80 million for new Piedmont train cars but will it accept the money?."
