What's Here:
North Carolina State Capitol
Amtrak Station
CSX Raleigh Yard
NS Glenwood Yard
Former SAL Depot
Old SAL Turntable
Data:
GPS Coordinates: as needed
Phone A/C 919
ZIP: 27601
Access by train/transit:
Amtrak Trains:
-- There are four Piedmont trains: #73, 74, 75, 76 (service between Raleigh and Burlington NC),
-- There is the Carolinian, #79 and 80 (thru service to Boston),
-- And there is the Silver Star, #91 and 92 (thru service to Boston),
-- Schedule is below, SB trains are odd numbered.
The Scoop:
Raleigh is the capitol of North Carolina, and
you're not far away from it when you're at the Amtrak Station.
Raleigh is served by CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Amtrak.
Amtrak has three trains that service Raleigh,
two of which are co-sponsored by NCDOT... the Piedmont
and the Carolinian. The
Piedmont is a twice daily train between
Raleigh and Charlotte. Trains 73 and 75 are the southbounds, trains 74 and
76 are the northbounds. The Carolinian
runs between Charlotte and Boston MA, via Raleigh. Train 79 is the SB,
train 80 is the NB. The third train is the Silver
Star which runs between Boston MA and Jacksonville FL, train 91 is
the SB, 92 the NB.
The Boylan St overpass provides a good spot
for pictures at the wye, with morning and evening sun giving you good lighting
for EB's and WB's respectively.
Much of the action in town is Norfolk
Southern. Their main yard in town is Glenwood Yard, located across and on
the west side of the Capitol Blvd from the CSX yard.
Off of Halifax St and Seaboard Ave, is the ex
Seaboard Airline depot, which has housed a garden center for many a year, Logan
Trading Company. This is also one of the better place to get pictures of
the one end of the CSX yard, and the NCDOT equipment which is stored here.
If you take a right before the depot parking
lot onto Semart Dr, the road will take you down to where a small CSX office is,
and their engines along with the NCDOT stuff. The CSX folks there may be
kind enough to let you take pictures if you act properly.
While you're there, across Peace St, is the old SAL turntable. It
can be accessed via W. Johnson Rd, only
off the northbound side of Capitol Blvd.
According to sources, there is one scheduled CSX freight, a couple of
locals, the thru Amtrak train, and whatever moves NCDOT makes.
Hayden Cope of Raleigh sends in this update for activity in the area: There are
actually two daily freights on CSX here, F741 and F742 Raleigh - Hamlet,
-- on M-F the Raleigh - Henderson turn runs, F711 NB and F709 SB,
-- along with the Raleigh - Youngsville job, F735,
-- F703 the yard job goes on duty at 10PM every night.
On NS you have:
-- 352 and 351, Raleigh - Linwood and
-- 349 and 350 Linwood - Selma.
-- Coal trains no longer run this way but unit grain trains from Decatur and unit
ethanol trains make regular appearances.
-- E25 the Raleigh - Fayetteville turn can be seen at Boylan Tu Th and occasionally on Sat and Sun.
-- E20 AM yard job can be seen, and the E60 PM yard job will run around after 350 rolls through.
-- Sometimes an E90 extra will roll through too from Selma to Glenwood.
I also highly recommend railfanning at the fairgrounds in front of Dorton Arena
next time you happen to be in town. All the traffic is very visible there
and they move at a real good speed.
Cary and Durham are close enough to the west
make it worthwhile to visit them, and each also has an Amtrak station.
There's a really nice curve on the far side of Durham that is nice to catch
trains on. To the east you have Selma, which is where the Amtrak routes
join up with two of the other North Carolina passenger trains.
Note: The majority of pictures below were shot
on Wednesday morning, July 4th, 2012. The day turned out to be one of the
hottest of the summer, and the humidity was almost as high as the temps...
that's why none of the pictures really look stellar, cause you could "cut the
air with a knife".
A good page of NC links can be found at tomstrainstation.com/links.html, but it looks like Toms
Trains is no more, and the website is owned by an Indian (country) poker site :-), I wish I had saved the page.....
Acknowledgements:
Shave, for additional information on items of railfan interest in Raleigh.
Hayden Cope of Raleigh for additional train info.
Denver Todd
Raleigh is conveniently located off I-40. I-40 to the west joins up
with I-85 on the other side of Durham. To the east, I-40 actually runs SE and connects
with I-95, for those of you coming from the southern eastern seaboard.
From the northern seaboard, I-85 from the
Petersburg area would be you're best bet. You could take US70 off I-85
into Raleigh, but I prefer a little bit of driving thru Durham on Gregson St
(exit 176) south to Chapel Hill, where you can then get on the Durham Freeway
(NC147) to connect to I-40.
If you're coming in from eastern NC, US70 does
a pretty good job from places like Havelock, New Bern, and Goldsboro... but
ya'll probably already know that. BTW, the NS line that runs out of town
on a SE course hits these towns.
From the Atlanta area, of course, it's I-85 to I-40.
From the western Virginia areas like Roanoke,
Staunton, or Winchester, come down I-81 to I-77 into Charlotte, and then take
I-85 east to I-40.
The Spencer Shops is about 120 miles west, Durham
about 20 miles, Greensboro about 75 miles, and Charlotte about 155 miles.
Located off of West Cabarrus St, and next to a crossing. Pictures from the crossing are OK,
better from across the tracks in the industrial park.
The Piedmont in Charlotte
The North Carolina State Capitol Building
GPS Coordinates: 35.780413, -78.639096 (center of the building)
CSX Raleigh Yard
Only thing running on July 4th 2012 was this guy doing some switching
NS Glenwood Yard
Above pictures shot just after sunrise on July 4th, 2012, not much going on!... Hazy day.
The crossing at Fairview Rd, looking towards the yard, and away from the yard
ex Seaboard Airline Depot
GPS Coordinates: 35.789628, -78.640898
It's amazing how much of the old station infrastructure is still intact after all
these years. A quick walk around reveals a lot. Almost everything in the immediate vicinity has SEABOARD in it's name!
NS/CSX Interchange and Diamond
GPS Coordinates: 35.804825, -78.624424 (parking lot adjacent to the diamond)
This interchange is at the north end of both of the yards.
NS/CSX Wye and Interchange along with the Amtrak Station
GPS Coordinates: 35.777016, -78.647365 (north leg of the wye in parking lot with good vantage point)
From Hargett St, looking north on the single track at the north end of the wye
At the Cabarrus St crossing
NC DOT Storage
GPS Coordinates: 35.792816, -78.641116
Old SAL Turntable
GPS Coordinates: 35.787398, -78.641786
Many thanks to Shave for turning me on to this rare find, that is easy to access to boot!
A portion of the USGS Raleigh Quadrangle map from 1940.
Doesn't appear that a whole lot has changed, which is most unusual!
This and more found here: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/topo/topo_us.html
NS overpass over Peace Street after coming off Capitol Blvd (looking right)
CSX overpass over Peace Street after coming off
Capitol Blvd (looking left)
Going under the CSX tracks on Whitaker Mill Road
Getting on Capitol Blvd from Fairview Road, heading towards
downtown
EB freight rolling thru at 06:58
Richmond Police car at the end of W Davie St by the
Raleigh Depot center
The Raleigh Depot center, a small commercial
center on the one side of the wye
Grade crossing at Cabarrus St
Signs at the end of W Davie St, by the entrance to the
Raleigh Depot center
My truck, always has that B&O CPL on the back when I
take railfan trips!
Disclaimers:
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an expert. My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page. This is something I have fun with while
trying to help others.
Please Note: Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.
For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my
indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented
I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.
If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct. Once in a while,
an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or
disoriented. Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get
local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the
railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job
of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads. Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.
Aerial shots were taken from either Google or Bing Maps as noted. Screen captures are made
with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it!
By the way, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous
and/or other stuff.
Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit
is always given! Please be NICE!!! Contact info is here
Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly inaccurate, wrong, or not true.