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The first Piedmont train out of the new Raleigh Union Station. The first shows the building with the train as it pulled in. The second is as it was leaving on its way to Charlotte. There are three Piedmont trains each way every day plus Amtrak’s Carolinian.

The Station started out as an assembly building for Dillon Supply Company, a steel fabrication firm and industrial supplies dealer. It was adapted and reused for RUS. The curve in the station tracks is almost ten degrees.

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Bill,

You are correct. This is the second Union Station. The head house does still exist at the corner of Dawson St and Martin St next to Central Fire Station.

The Seaboard pulled out and built their own station in the early fourties when the streamliners got too long for the stub end tracks and the back up moves got too long.

The Southern pulled out in the late fourties and built the station that was in use until Monday night. It will be torn down very soon and the mainline going east will be shifted and realigned for more clearance from the new station tracks.

The old (or as we say, the real) Norfolk Southern had given up passenger service before the Southern moved.

As for passenger service to Ashville that is NCDOT funding. The new station is primarily City of Raleigh funding. Also, don’t forget that NS has downgraded the line from Salisbury to Asheville to 25 mph I believe.

George

 

 

Bill N posted:

I thought Raleigh already had a Union Station.  It was a stub end depot located near Boylan Tower that served the Southern, Seaboard and original Norfolk Southern.  Although it stopped being used in the Forties the building itself was still there the last time I was in Raleigh.

it would also require demolishing about two blocks of buildings to get track back to it.  Being a stub end would require a bunch more work for through trains as well.

Interestingly enough, the new depot is the third Amtrak station in Raleigh.  They used the old Seaboard depot on Peace Street for many years before the Raleigh to Petersburg trackage was abandoned when the Silver Star was the only Amtrak service in Raleigh.

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