In January 1997, NCDOT's Rail Division first studied the possibility of restoring service to the region. Based on projected costs, revenue, and ridership, the best option was determined to be a route between Salisbury and Asheville along 139 miles (224 km) of Norfolk Southern's S-Line. Intermediate stations would be located in Statesville, Hickory, Morganton, Marion, Old Fort, and Black Mountain. Passengers could transfer to the Piedmont or Carolinian at Salisbury station. In 1999, local stakeholders formed the Western North Carolina Rail Corridor Committee to promote the enactment of the route. In March 2001, NCDOT published an updated study with a timetable of phases for the project, along with a cost estimate for each phase. During the first phase, Amtrak would trial the route with Amtrak Thruway service along US 70 to Asheville, the region's first connection of any sort to the national rail system in the Amtrak era. The report also recommended an additional station in Valdese. In April 2002, an NCDOT report proposed a schedule of two daily round trips on the route: one morning and one evening departure in each direction. The report estimated that the station, track, signal, and bridge projects required to start the route would cost $134.7 million (2002 US dollars).
In August 2015, the Comprehensive State Rail Plan continued to recommend the rail route with an interim Thruway Bus service. The plan estimated a cost of $405.3 million (2014 US dollars) and a ridership of 24,000 in the first year. Noting the age of the original studies, NCDOT prescribes an updated study. In March 2021, Amtrak included the route in its "Amtrak Connects Us" 15-year expansion vision ahead of the Biden administration's push to pass the American Jobs Plan. In December 2023, an updated feasibility study was completed by NCDOT, which estimated the cost at $665 million (2023 US dollars). The study assumed three round trips per day, with conceptional travel times of 3 hours and 25 minutes to 3 hours and 48 minutes, ridership modeling of up to 100,000 annual local trips by 2045, and ridership modeling of up to 290,000 additional Western North Carolina trips from connections via the Carolinian and Piedmont trains. In the appendix, Norfolk Southern noted that they cannot validate the various conclusions in the report, but do support the expansion of passenger rail and look forward to those discussions. Also, that same month, the Federal Railroad Administration selected the Asheville–Salisbury route as part of the Corridor Identification and Development Program. It was granted up to $500,000 toward engineering and feasibility studies and is prioritized for future federal funding.
For more information visit: https://www.amtrakconnectsus.com/maps/asheville-salisbury/