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By Ena Sellers, Duplin Journal
WALLACE — The historic Community Center on Wallace’s Railroad Street saw a full house on Nov. 28 as people gathered to learn more about the proposed passenger line between Wilmington and Raleigh.
The event featured a presentation by Eddie McFalls, a consultant with the NC Department of Transportation Rail Division. Gene Merritt and Steve Unger, both well-known business entrepreneurs, are leading the effort to create public awareness through Eastern Carolina Rail, a non-profit organization, to promote the return of passenger rail between Raleigh and Wilmington.
The goal according to Unger is to bring at least one passenger train station to every county connecting Wilmington to Raleigh. “In Duplin we would like to have two. We would like to have one in Wallace, and we would like to have one in Warsaw,” Unger told the Duplin Journal.
And while there is no train station in Warsaw, the town is very suitable because it’s centrally located. A station in Warsaw would service Clinton, Faison, and Kenansville according to Unger.
Among the improvements that would be part of the general route is restoring the section without tracks from Wallace to Castle Hayne, which is owned by the DOT. The business entrepreneur explained that “a bill that went to the General Assembly, enabled DOT to purchase the right of way from Wallace all the way down to Wilmington for $1 and it preserved the route for future use.”
According to Unger, the bipartisan effort has received support from both Republicans and Democrats. Recently the non-profit received a resolution from Pender County pledging their support.
“Now we are waiting with bated breath on the notification of the $500,000 initial grants. We should have a major announcement on that as soon as it comes down,” said Unger, adding he hopes to find out about the funding before the end of the year.
“For years and years, we heard the rail might be coming back,” said Wallace Mayor Jason Wells, who remembers as a kid hearing the train approaching and running down the street to see it. “I think this is the closest we have been to making that a reality. If you think about what it means, not just from a transportation standpoint, but an economic impact, whether that’s passenger rail or freight, I do think that it’s just going to add to the growth that we already see coming to our area.”
The 134-mile route from Wilmington to Raleigh is a 7-to-12-year project that would include stations in Wallace, Warsaw, Goldsboro, Selma, and Clayton. The last train that carried passengers between Wilmington and Raleigh was in 1968.
“The next set of money, 10% has to come from a source other than the federal government and finally, the construction costs are based on 80/20, that’s certainly doable, especially if we have political support from both parties,” said Unger.
The train would take less than three hours to go from Raleigh to Wilmington, traveling between 70 and 80 miles an hour. They are looking at three trains a day –morning, afternoon, and evening. “The only big part of the project, other than laying down tracks, is that we will have to build a new rail bridge over the Northeast Cape Fear River,” Unger told the Duplin Journal. “That bridge was built in 1914 and while it’s functional, it’s certainly not functional for 75-mile per hour trains.”
Unger explained that with no airplane flights connecting Wilmington and Raleigh, this fills a need.
“The last one was back when Piedmont was flying propellers, so you can go from Wilmington to Charlotte, Chicago or Washington, DC, but you can’t fly to Raleigh,” said Unger.
“Part of it is this will also open up Duplin County and Wayne County freight to Wilmington and give the safe port another way to get stuff out of town. So, this will also serve as the second outlet for freight traffic. CSX was going to pull up the tracks here and they said, well, if you can guarantee it’s getting used once a month, we will leave the tracks in. Well, there is a lot of train traffic right now and a lot of it is worked out very well with the growth of agricultural interests. So, the line won’t be exclusively for passenger rail. It will also serve the business interests of the entire area.”
The event kicked off with Unger thanking the Town of Wallace for hosting them. He spoke about the organization and what their goals are.
“In Duplin County we are advocating for two, since Wallace sits on the border of Pender County, preliminarily Warsaw would be a centrally located train stop, because you have got the county seat Kenansville on the other side. You’re not that far from Clinton,” he added, explaining that further north, Goldsboro has a train station and an intermodal bus station that could be used in the meantime. “Selma has a refurbished historic Amtrak station with already some Amtrak trains going through.”
Merritt, a Rose Hill native who led the organization that spearheaded the Benson-Wilmington extension of I-40 was next to address the audience. He spoke about his roots and how this movement reminded him of pushing for the I-40 extension “we came to Burgaw and Wallace, had all the places more or less along the route and made speeches about how we needed the highway,” he said excitedly as he reminisced about the past and contemplated the possibilities of the future with the growth of passenger rail service on the upswing. Merritt encouraged participants to embrace the cause.
“The actual completion of the Raleigh and Wilmington Railroad would be the greatest thing that ever happened to the North Carolina State Ports Authority to give them a decent route which they don’t have at this time,” Merritt said, adding that it is his belief it would be great for the Town of Wallace and the state of North Carolina.
Doctor David Robinson with the Carolina Association of Passenger Transportation was next on the line up. He emphasized the importance of involving travel, tourism and economic development folks.
“I think the Raleigh to Wilmington service has tremendous potential from passengers, with freight benefits too,” said Robinson. “I think it could be as successful as the current Piedmont train service… between Raleigh and Charlotte. But again, based on that experience, you really need to involve a lot of businesspeople, economic development bureaus and all those folks that have a different perspective of what this can mean to the community.”
McFalls opened his presentation talking about the projects developed to have a positive impact on the economy.
“That’s important as we’re trying to develop in this case a passive rail network that also can have some freight benefits,” said McFalls.
“We’re trying to connect Wilmington, Goldsboro, Wallace, you know towns like Clayton, Raleigh… we’re trying to connect those centers together.”
McFalls explained that train ridership in the state is growing. “That’s why it’s a good time for some of these other federal programs to come online and to take advantage of them,” McFalls said, explaining that they submitted 12 corridors for consideration for the Porter Identification Development program.
“Some are multi-step corridors like Charlotte, DC and North Carolina. I can go to Charlotte or transfer trains and maybe go out of the northeast, so really, we are trying to generate a whole network for people to be able to get beyond just Wilmington. We submitted all these corridors into the program, and we are waiting to hear back. This is supposed to be a program that is going to develop a pipeline of projects.”
He explained that the program would provide up to half a million per quarter of Federal money to scope what the service should be. “What endpoints should connect, what general corridors we need to evaluate, how fast it needs to go to make it marketable and things of that nature,” he added.
McFalls explained that after a scope is defined, a service development plan that is 90% federally funded would ensure there is enough infrastructure. He spoke about each stage of the process.
“Until you have the environmental documentation, you really don’t have a final decision on the corridor. We can talk about the recommended route… but until you have gone through that full process and identified all the historic district issues… all the community issues and all the preferences and things like that, you don’t have a final decision,” McFalls said.
Unger added that the reason we have rails in Duplin County right now is because there is sufficient usage by freight customers.
“It kept those rails from being pulled up and so we are thankful, and we know that this could be of usage… We are also talking about it being a green form of transportation.”
According to Unger there is economic benefit to all the towns on the route.
“It’d be an economic generator for Wallace. Anywhere the trains come and go, it helps redevelopment, helps real estate development, and helps the quality of life in those towns. Most of the towns identified along this route wouldn’t even exist if there had not been a railroad. So, this is like a second shot in the arm to the economy for this area and it’s our job to help promote it and to see that it’s done in a timely fashion and that we’re there to help make it happen.”
McFalls answered questions from the public and explained that the communities are going to have the primary input.
“Conceptual functional engineering is going to have a lot of coordination with the towns, and rural planning organizations,” said McFalls. “All that stuff would feed into what the public benefits are versus what the costs are, and the operating costs.
He explained that the service development plan is the first deliverable that’s going to give them a good sense of all the details like “where we are stopping, what communities are connecting, how much infrastructure is it going to take? “What kind of equipment do we need to make a facility,” etc. Then the environmental document in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act would determine environmental impacts, human impacts, natural impacts and see what those impacts are.
The group stated that resuming passenger trains on this corridor could be done within the next decade.
For many locals, the train “is a reminder of better days and childhood memories.”
“I think, at least for some of us, that’s reason enough to get excited,” said Mayor Wells. “But at the same time, Southeastern North Carolina is growing a lot and that’s just going to add to that, as more and more folks look to move to the southeast.”
Currently Wallace is looking at about 1200 homes that are coming. “Obviously, there’s increased traffic and things like that. You also have to think about Emergency Management Services with Fire and Rescue and police, they mentioned earlier tonight the potential that a train may come and may stop for 4 to 5 minutes, but we are early enough in the planning stages. If we get the funding, we can take all those things into consideration, as long as we’re all communicating and working together with the local community. I think we will be fine.”
To learn more, visit https://www.easterncarolinarail.com/
Update: Eastern Carolina Rail just announced the Wilmington to Raleigh Corridor was awarded $500,000 for identification and development.
This means Corridor sponsors would enter step one of the program to develop a scope, schedule, and cost estimate for preparing, completing, or documenting its service development plan, according to the news release.
