From Glenn Harbeck’s point of view, people seem to be getting on board for the first leg of a journey that could pave the way for future growth.

As part of preliminary steps toward a potential relocation of where trains travel in the area, Harbeck has been explaining at recent meetings how that relocation, from mainly within city limits to across the Cape Fear River, could be an economic and community development opportunity for the city, region and state.

“Once they hear the story, we’ve gotten pretty good across-the-board support,” said Harbeck, the city’s director of planning, development and transportation. “Most people say, ‘Well, can we do this yesterday?’”

Moving the rail line wouldn’t mean moving tracks but rather laying some down, potentially on a path along U.S. 421, which officials say would give trains easier access to the Port of Wilmington while eliminating the need for trains to use the eight miles of tracks that form an overturned “V” shape throughout the city.

For Harbeck, the potential rail relocation also helps answer questions he poses in recent presentations on the topic, including “How can the city and the region accommodate growth without traffic grinding to a halt?” and “What is the most strategic use of capital for dealing with the coming growth of the city and region?”

The first phase would be to provide an alternate route. “This will provide a direct link to the 421 corridor,” Harbeck said recently of a potential route shown on the map he uses to explain the initiative.

The city’s Rail Realignment Task Force, chaired by city councilwoman Laura Padgett, was scheduled to hold its first meeting at the beginning of November. The City Council agreed Aug. 18 to support a $300,000 feasibility study, for which the city would pay $100,000, and the Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization and N.C. Department of Transportation would split the remaining cost.

With a task force in place that includes Wilmington, New Hanover County, Brunswick County, Port and CSX Rail officials, Padgett said she feels that the her job as chairwoman is to get the ball rolling, with nothing yet set in stone.

“At this point, we are casting as broad a net as possible for information, interest and funding possibilities,” Padgett said.

Marc Hamel, rail project development and environmental engineer for the N.C. DOT’s Rail Division, joined the task force when mayor Bill Saffo appointed three additional members to the group, which now totals 10, on Oct. 8.

Hamel said the realignment would likely cost multimillions of dollars.

But it’s way too early to tell what an exact dollar amount would be, officials said. In his talks, Harbeck points out some of the costly challenges that the current rail route poses, including doubling the price tag of extending Independence Boulevard, a project that has been planned but not funded, from $75 million to $150 million. That’s because the fact that the road crosses the rail twice means it would legally be required to be elevated.    

Other costs include the costs to the city and state to maintain rail crossings.


Eliminating safety hazards would be another plus of the relocation, officials said.

“It would be nice to be able to remove the safety concerns of all the motorists crossing tracks in Wilmington. Wherever you have the ability for cars and trains to have conflicts, that’s always a safety hazard, and we work diligently throughout the state to remove those sort of safety hazards,” Hamel said. “So from a safety standpoint, we’d love to see it. However, it’s a lot of money. An undertaking like that would be a huge quantity of money, but how much remains to be seen.”

Hamel said the N.C. DOT is working with the city right now on a safety study, called a Traffic Separation Study, with the expectation of receiving the results this spring. That effort is unrelated to the rail relocation initiative. Such studies have been conducted throughout the state, he said, and can pinpoint solutions such as upgrading signals, closing crossings, realigning roads or building bridges over or under tracks.

Currently, there’s not a large volume of trains going through the city of Wilmington, Hamel said. Some towns on the North Carolina railroad corridor can get 40 to 60 trains a day going through, he said.

Officials expect Wilmington’s volume to increase as the port and manufacturers grow. 

Port bulk tonnage is expected to increase by 15 percent and break bulk tonnage by more than 100 percent by 2020, according to city numbers. Enviva, a wood pellet export company with facilities in Wilmington, expects to add three trains per week. Additionally, new rail car manufacturer Vertex Railcar Corp. could be adding one to two trains weekly once the company’s facility at 202 Raleigh St. reaches its full production potential, the city’s presentation says.

An additional economic development aid, officials say, would be the ability to leverage infrastructure investments on U.S. 421, specifically the process underway to extend water and sewer lines along the industrial corridor to make it more attractive to companies that could move to the area, bringing new jobs.

While the first phase of the initiative would relocate the rail, the second phase could turn the former route through the city into a trolley line, with the third and fourth phases expanding that service. That could help spur new investments in underutilized properties adjoining the rail, Harbeck said.

Additional potential benefits include saving wear and tear on roads by shifting more transportation of goods from trucks to rail and allowing for the possibility of commuter service to northern Brunswick County towns.

The potential impact on Brunswick County is one reason Brunswick County commissioner Frank Williams was appointed to the task force. Williams said his goal as a member of the task force aligns with that of city officials: to share as much information as possible.

“I’ve already heard from a few residents who have questions,” he said.

Williams said he wants to “see what they have to say and see what concerns or questions people have and try to get as many of those answered as possible ... I think communication and educating the public on what this is and what impact it might have on them is critical.”