Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor

Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor (SEHSR) is a passenger rail transportation project in the United States to connect with the existing high speed rail corridor from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, DC known as the Northeast Corridor (served by Amtrak's Acela Express and Regional services and many commuter railroads) and extend similar high speed passenger rail services south through Richmond and Petersburg in Virginia through Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina. Since first established in 1992, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has since extended the corridor to Atlanta and Macon, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama.

Most funding for the SEHSR to date has been by the USDOT and the states of North Carolina and Virginia. Both states already fund some non-high speed rail service operated for them by Amtrak, and own locomotives and passenger cars. The first large section of the SEHSR, from Washington, DC through Virginia and North Carolina south to Charlotte, is due to be in service by 2013 based on funding availability. [1]

The portion of the proposed Corridor from Richmond to Raleigh travels along the old Seaboard Air Line Railroad main line, now CSX's S line. This line sees much less intensive service than when the famous Orange Blossom Special traveled at speeds in excess of 79 mph between Richmond and Jacksonville, Florida, and the quality of the tracks has declined. In fact, the tracks were entirely removed along the S line between Centralia, Virginia and Norlina, North Carolina in the late seventies in favor of CSX's A line, which largely runs parallel to I-95 and passes east of Raleigh through Fayetteville, North Carolina. The A line is currently used for Amtrak service, and is a more direct route to Florida than the S line, but adds an hour to the travel time from Richmond to Raleigh (and onto Charlotte.) In other areas double-tracking has been removed since the line's heyday. Significant upgrades and restoration will be required to support high speed service along the corridor; at the same time, the relative absence of freight trains along the S line will mean that significant curve straightening and other work can be accomplished without disrupting current service.

Further extensions from Charlotte through Spartanburg and Greenville, South Carolina to Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah, Georgia are currently being studied, along with an extension from Raleigh through Columbia, South Carolina to Savannah and on to Jacksonville, Florida.

Virginia is also studying two other projects with connecting sections. One is the Richmond-Hampton Roads corridor, from Richmond east to Hampton Roads. [2]. Another project, knowns as the Transdominion Express, would extend from Richmond west to Lynchburg and from Washington, DC (Alexandria) south via an existing Virginia Railway Express route to Manassas, extending on south to Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Roanoke and Bristol on the Tennessee border. [3]

External links

• Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor
• Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation
• North Carolina DOT Rail Division
• Transdominion Express webpage