Latest news with #JasonOrthner
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6 days ago
- Business
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NCDOT celebrates 35 years of trains running between Charlotte, New York
The North Carolina Department of Transportation will be celebrating two train service anniversaries. The Carolinian began running from Charlotte to New York daily 35 years ago on Friday as a part of NC by train, WTVD reports. Additionally, the department will be celebrating 30 years of Piedmont service. It runs from Charlotte to Raleigh with seven stops between. READ: Two arrested for possession of stolen luxury vehicles The NC by Train leadership told WTVD that ridership is up 55% since 2019. North Carolina's rail service has seen record ridership for the last three years, carrying nearly 721,000 passengers in 2024. And the NC by Train leadership said opportunities continue to open. 'So the future is really bright for train travel in North Carolina. We have had a lot of investment both from our our state leaders as well as the US D.O.T. Federal Labor Administration has selected seven quarters across the state for advancing rail transportation into new communities such as Asheville. Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Wilmington. Places that don't have them,' rail division director Jason Orthner told WTVD. WATCH: Two arrested for possession of stolen luxury vehicles
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
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Historic Asheville railroad may be restored after Helene; likely to support Amtrak travel
Referred to by one historian as the "center of the universe" of the region's railway history, a landmark gateway between Asheville and Old Fort will be rebuilt, Norfolk Southern has told the N.C. Department of Transportation. Located in McDowell County, the historic set of railroad tracks known as the Old Fort Loops have long served as the only rail line connecting Asheville to the rest of North Carolina for freight and passenger travel. NCDOT Rail Division Director Jason Orthner said the company has told the state it will rebuild the loops, though a company spokesperson told the Citizen Times March 6 that the section "remains under assessment." The potential rebuild of the historic section of railroad comes after Tropical Storm Helene wrecked and ravaged railroads across the region, leaving some stretches of railroad, like the loops, in disrepair. During a March 5 Western North Carolina Rail Committee meeting, Orthner said the company has "communicated directly" to NCDOT that the loops would be rebuilt, providing reassurance that the stretch is vital to returning passenger travel to WNC will be repaired. "That obviously provides a basis not just for this future passenger rail service, but the important need for freight to move from the central part of North Carolina all the way to the western part of North Carolina," Orthner said. The line running through the loops from Asheville to Salisbury was selected among six others in North Carolina for the Federal Rail Administration's Corridor I.D. program. The program seeks to guide comprehensive intercity passenger rail planning and development, and awards identified corridors with a $500,000 grant, kicking off a process that insures federal funding is set aside for the projects. Currently, the Asheville to Salisbury line is in the second stage of the program during which advocates have been seeking roughly $400,000 to make up the 10% non-federal match to current federal funding. Orthner indicated the match could come from the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management's State Technical Assistance and Match Program, which is designed to help state agencies apply for matching funds associated with infrastructure opportunities established through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. "We think we'll be in step two for one to two years, and then hopefully immediately move from that step into the pre-engineering and environmental phase of the project," Orthner said. The full project is projected to cost roughly $665 million, according to a 2023 WNC Rail Feasibility study, and would be heavily funded by a $66 billion pool of funds designated toward rail projects in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Currently, the status of federal funding is unclear amid cost-cutting efforts by the federal Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk. During a visit to Interstate 40 in early February, NCDOT Secretary Joey Hopkins said, "all of our grants are kind of on pause with the new administration." NCDOT Rail Division spokesperson Elizabeth Macam told the Citizen Times that NCDOT is "actively working on planning for" the grants to be received. The loops are historically significant to both Asheville and the region's workers. In the late 1800's, several hundred mostly Black convict laborers, many of which had been unfairly imprisoned, died in the construction of the railroad through the loops. The untrained workers blew through mountains with nitroglycerin to create the five tunnels connected to the rail line while navigating steep mountain passes and poor treatment from guards, according to Rail and Incarcerated Laborer Memorial Project. An estimated 139 workers died during the construction of the Swannanoa Gap rail line, which includes a 1,832-foot-long tunnel. For 95 years, from 1880 to 1975, passenger rail ran from Biltmore Village to Salisbury and the rest of the state. The last passenger rail train ran on Aug. 8, 1975. Marion Mayor Steve Little, who serves on the board of the RAIL Project and as a co-chair of the WNC Rail Committee lauded the news and noted that repairs may come with a "silver lining" — additional work required to rebuild the line to passenger rail standards may be done alongside repair work. He also noted that most of the worst damage is closer to Old Fort, near Mill Creek Road, while most of the actual loops, which wind along the mountains toward Swannanoa, were only partially damaged by landslides. Other railroads have done considerable repairs after the storm. CSX Transportation has spent $400 million on repairs along the Nolichucky River between Spruce Pine and Erwin, Tennessee, said CSX Director of State Government Affairs John Dillard during the meeting. Orthner compared the effort to the repairs being made along Interstate 40 in the Pigeon River Gorge. The repairs near the loops are probably less intensive to rebuild than those along the Nolichucky, Little opined. "If CSX can do that work up in the Nolichucky area, then Norfolk Southern can do [the Old Fort Loops]," he said. Norfolk Southern expects to reopen the rail lines from Newport, Tennessee, through Asheville and to Grovestone in Swannanoa by March 31, 2025, the company announced in December. For the loops, there is no timeline for restoration. "I don't have a specific date, and Norfolk Southern has been clear that they don't want to share a specific date for restoration, but I believe there's already activity happening," Orthner said of rebuilding. Will Hofmann is the Growth and Development Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Got a tip? Email him at WHofmann@ This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Travel through Old Fort Loops targeted for restoration, NCDOT says
