This Post is Part of my Finally the Piedmont Trip
The fact the Carolinian was over an hour late and yesterday’s thunderstorm means I’m up early for another early start. The reason is to get Burlington, the one station on the Piedmont Line without any public transportation access that doesn’t seem worth spending a full four hour layover in. I also need to double back and get Durham (midday Triangle Transit bus service makes it impossible to get back to Cary during my layover). Last night, as I booked by ticket I’m in for a bit of a shock (I would have gone out to Burlington yesterday for an hour had the Carolinian been on time). I don’t realize that North Carolina has a raising prices for last minute tickets policy. My ticket from Raleigh to Burlington costs $12.50 instead of $9 if I had booked it the day before. My return to get Durham is $7.50 instead of $5.50. That’s over a $5 difference for such a short trip.
Its another early wake-up call of 5:20. I yet again wake myself up just before my alarm. I’m in the breakfast area of the Hampton Inn at 5:50 waiting for them to open the doors into breakfast. They do, 5 minutes late (6:05) and I’m eating my waffle.
I leave the hotel and start walking towards the train station. I see my Piedmont train leaving the yard and slowly crossing a grade crossing ahead. It has locomotives at both ends so I assume it’s in pull-pull mode. I get some photos and all of a sudden the train stops. The back blocking the crossing gates still down. (I’ll admit I go around them, not wanting to miss it).
I walk down to the Raleigh Station, getting there at 6:40, 5 minutes before departure. No sign of the train. They announce that it’s delayed coming out of the yard because NS is having trouble with its signals and no further information.
I go and print out a paper copy of my ticket. The Raleigh Station has a tiny first class lounge I’m eligible for access to. I decide I might as well check it out as were late. I show my Select+ Plus card. The agent knows what one is and writes the code down on the edge of my ticket. She says she’ll make announcements and I’ll hear them inside the lounge. I let myself into the small room with a few chairs, a water cooler (both cold and hot water) but no tea to make or cups to make tea in. There are a few generic and small Amtrak ’emergency’ no name water bottles, a coat rack and some wheelchairs in the corner. The only problem with the room is the television. It’s a modern flatscreen TV that’s on and blaring the CBS morning news. I can’t find a way to turn it off!
At about 7:05, I hear a toot outside and leave the lounge to my train entering. There maybe a dozen boarding passengers. There wasn’t an announcement. The train has four cars between two locomotives with 3 coaches and the baggage/vending machine car. Only the first two cars are open.
I board the Grey Squirrel the front coach for intermediate passengers. I’m immediately a fan of the Heritage NCDOT cars. The windows are nice and big and there is oodles of legroom. The modern green seats match the retro look well. The glass of the former smoking section closes off a “conference area” with a table between two sets of seats. Each set of seats has a ridiculous 4 outlets!
The train finally leaves at 7:12, leaving past the prison. The conductor welcomes us aboard, mentions the restrooms and to go forward for the lounge car with vending machines only. The coaches are wonderfully restored. Water on the windows makes picture taking
- 7:18 – Pass NC Department of highways storage yard.
- 7:20 – Following a road I see a sign for Cary town limits and soon the announcement for Cary
We arrive in Cary at 7:23 and there two station staff members who look nearly identical on the platform. The platform has two shelters and two gates for access. We leave through trees and its 18 minutes to Durham.
- 7:29 – Pass through a town and back to dense trees.
- 7:32 – We diverge from another rail line and suburban sprawl returns.
- 7:34 – What I think is a new highways overpass user construction I immediately realize is a grade-separation project. Then it’s over I-40 with houses and office parks never far from view between the trees.
- 7:39 – See cows off in the distance, passing Dave’s Tow-away.
- 7:40 – Pass some NS Locomotives and a few freight cars on a siding. We pass an old warehouse.
- 7:41 – we get the announcement for Durham, my window is nearly clear. We start passing large office park buildings and some restored warehouses. I see a central bus station. It’s across the street from the rail station in a former brick factory. I think it has a restricted access platform.
We arrive at 7:42 and leave at 7:44. My car gets more crowded. The seat checks are single letters. We pass some Duke Athletics buses and more warehouses. I finally make my first visit to the lounge car as we leave Durham. It’s two crowded for photos. There are vending machines along with bottled water and coffee “paid for by your Piedmont ticket purchase.”
- 7:52 – We pass a freight train and are back in the woods. He conductor apologizes that were 30 minutes late due to Norfolk Southern having computer problems and that we can’t make up that much time. There is also a schedule in the seat back pocket and to just add 30 minutes to those times for our new departure times.
- 7:55 – Pass a few houses and hit a branch of some sort
- 8:00 – A regular grade crossing over a dirt road. About six kids armed with vending machines treats (and there two Moms) sit down in my car to move to the facing each other seats that have reserved for parties of four or more signs.
- 8:04 – Over another two lane highway.
- 8:09 – The tiny community of Elfland, a bunch of small houses.
- 8:10 – Mebane, a bigger town with a fire department and public library.
- 8:11 – The stripped car lot of the day.
- 8:17 – Cross a river on a near bridge with some hills of construction netting.
- 8:19 – According to my phone were coming into Burlington with houses. I see a roadsign for Amtrak and get ready to get off.
We arrive in Burlington at 8:21, 29 minutes late. The name of the town originally was Company Shops and were the shops for the state subsidized during construction North Carolina Railroad. Today the shops are gone but I have an excellent 40 minutes photographing the station platform along a former shop building that has been converted to a station and some offices, complete with an exhibit about the history of the North Carolina Rail Road in the foyer. There is also a small waiting area staffed by a NC Station attendant, a retiree who might be volunteering.
I also go across the street to visit the former passenger depot with a boxcar nearby that’s now a park.
I head back to the station a little before 9:00 since our train is due at 9:01. Everyone is waiting out on the platform. There is a sign to Check in with the Station Attendant. I check the app and find out the Carolinian has left the last stop of Greensboro on time but keeps getting later and later somewhere in between here and there. I assume because of the off-meet with my 30 minute late Piedmont. I sit on the platform waiting tracking the train and go back inside for the restroom. The station attendant tells me were delayed because of a suspicious package on the tracks that the bomb squad is investigates He sort of makes a joke about maybe not taking any pictures. Great!
The Carolinian pulls in at 9:41 as I position myself by a platform sign to get an entrance photo.
I board the front coach. I think the same one as yesterday and we leave by 9:42. We leave Burlington passing construction. The only seats are awkwardly positioned with the windows windows and I realize the Amfleets have about half the legroom of the Grey Squirrel I just rode in..
- 9:55 – Pass White Furnace Company (1891) making good speed through Haw River.
- 9:56 – The next small town Mabane then back to trees.
- 10:12 – On this track for the second of 3 times just dozing off. We reach King, the start of a siding.
- 10:16 – They announce there picking up over a hundred people in Durham, Cary and Raleigh and to take you stuff off the seat next to you. We clearly pass a college campus, Duke, as we enter.
We arrive in Durham at 10:19. Groups of passengers are already positioned at the different boarding positions on the platform waiting for the Carolinain. I get off the train and although the platform has a single fenced off entrance (plus a second road to a garage door for the baggage cart) the station staff isn’t in the business of unlocking and re-locking the gate.
I head into the station and am a huge fan of the converted 1897 Tabbaco Warehouse the station is inside. I also get photos of the entrance to the station near a grade crossing.
I decide to spend my two-hour layover walking towards Duke and find out that I can do a one-way walk and take the Bull City Connector back to the station. I can’t believe how wooded Duke’s Campus is. I cross under an intentional graffitied underpass. I really enjoy my brief time exploring the Botanical Gardens.
Then its time for the 11:45 Bull City Connector I take this back, past the Amtrak Station to Durham Central Station, the main bus hub that has at least a dozen buses stopped in the bus station, waiting for the noon pulse of Durham Region Transit.
I get my final photos of the train platform across from the station, on top of an embankment and I think I see where the original Durham Station was (it wasn’t a stop in the Amtrak era until the Carolinian began 1990, since no other service ran between Greensboro and Raleigh before then) in a modular building.
I return to the platform and wait for the midday Piedmont with my travel companion Robert already aboard (he got on in Raleigh) to take me to Greensboro for the second half of today’s adventures.