Raleigh NC Railfan Guide

RAILFAN GUIDES of the U.S.

Todd's Railfan Guide to
RALEIGH NC

In General
How to get here
Map
Sights
Signals
Amtrak Schedules
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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.

According to sources, there is one scheduled CSX freight, a couple of locals, the thru Amtrak train, and whatever moves NCDOT makes.

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 yet this 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 list of equipment owned by NCDOT is at: http://www.bytrain.org/equipmt.html

A good page of NC links can be found at: http://www.tomstrainstation.com/links.html

Getting Here

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.

Map

The above map in a PDF is here

Sights

1 The Amtrak Station

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

2 The North Carolina State Capitol Building

3 CSX Raleigh Yard

Only thing running on July 4th 2012 was this guy doing some switching

4 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

5 ex Seaboard Airline Depot

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!