NCDOT moves ahead on high-speed rail project, despite Trump funding pause (2025)

Julie White didn’t wait long to address the question that hangs over the planned high-speed passenger rail line that North Carolina and Virginia plan to build between Raleigh and Richmond.

The federal government, under the Biden administration, pledged $1.1 billion to help build the first leg of the line in Wake County. But the Trump administration’s decision to put that grant on hold has created uncertainty over whether the state will actually receive the money.

White, the deputy secretary of the N.C. Department of Transportation who oversees rail, offered reassurances this week to a gathering of consultants and local government officials who are planning stations along the route.

“A lot of people are wondering, is this project still on track?” she said, half apologizing for the railroad pun. “It is still on track.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced the $1.1 billion federal grant in December 2023, using money from the big infrastructure bill approved by Congress two years earlier. It will cover most of the cost of transforming an aging freight railroad line with new tracks and signals and new bridges that eliminate every street crossing between Raleigh Union Station and a new station in downtown Wake Forest.

Eventually, NCDOT and its counterpart in Virginia plan to extend what’s known as the S-line to Richmond, with new tracks capable of handling trains up to 110 mph.

In February, Gov. Josh Stein and N.C. Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins sought assurances from Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy that federal support for the S-line project would come through. Duffy, who was visiting Western North Carolina to view damage from Hurricane Helene, said he wasn’t familiar with the grant but said suspension of it and others made by the Biden administration was routine.

NCDOT officials say they haven’t heard anything since about the status of the grant. Jason Orthner, head of NCDOT’s rail division, said they’re proceeding with the paperwork as if everything is a go.

“It’s just the normal process of finishing out the particular language of the agreements, giving them all the forms that they require and then following through on the process,” Orthner said in an interview. “No indication of anything other than just proceeding.”

White said she’s confident the state will receive the federal money because of the bipartisan support the project has enjoyed so far. NCDOT received a $47.5 million grant in 2020 from the Trump administration to buy the rail corridor between Raleigh and Ridgeway, near the Virginia state line, from freight railroad CSX.

A second $57.9 million grant to both states in 2022 is helping pay for the early engineering work, which has begun.

“Every time we’ve applied for a federal grant, we’ve come to the towns and communities and we have gone to our congressional delegation and asked for letters of support,” White said. “And we consistently receive letters of support from our bi-partisan congressional delegation. They, too, are really excited about this project.”

Towns plan for future passenger rail

As it designs the rail line, NCDOT is also helping communities along the corridor plan for future stations or “mobility hubs,” where trains, cars, bicycles, scooters and pedestrians will come together. Towns such as Franklinton, Henderson and Youngsville grew up around the railroad and eagerly anticipate a return of regular train service.

The state is also helping Apex and Sanford lay the groundwork for future passenger rail, and both towns have chosen sites for new downtown stations.

“We have Amtrak go through our town twice a day, and it doesn’t stop,” said David Montgomery, senior planner for the City of Sanford. “And it hasn’t stopped in 50 years. And this is the closest that we have ever come to having that stop a reality.”

Montgomery and representatives from a half dozen other towns reported progress on their station plans in a church auditorium in Youngsville this week. The S-line runs through the center of Youngsville, and plans call for depressing the tracks in a trench so streets can pass over them.

The first new station along the S-line will be in downtown Wake Forest, on a parking lot where a passenger depot stood decades ago. In January, the town learned that it had received a $13.2 million federal grant to help build the station. NCDOT says with the $1.1 billion S-line grant, Wake Forest will become the eastern terminus of the Piedmont, the Amtrak trains that make four round trips daily between Raleigh and Charlotte.

Wake Forest Mayor Vivian Jones said she’s not worried that the Trump administration will somehow cancel the station grant.

“I believe that things that are well vetted and that have been done in an appropriate way and are good projects, I think they’ll come through,” Jones said. “I feel very confident about it.”

NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 12:01 PM.