David Pressley asked me if I wanted to ride this system in its present form, even though it was expanding. I naturally said "yes" as it would be new mileage and a new route. So after we finished at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, we drove to Interstate 77 but Friday night traffic was bad so we took US 29 into Kannapolis instead, where David took me to the new Amtrak station.
The Kannapolis Amtrak station, built in 2004, does not look like a train station to me.
The old Southern Railway Kannapolis station built in 1935. David knew all the train schedules off by heart and told me Piedmont Train 76 was due in about ten minutes so we waited.
The old Southern Railway Kannapolis sign across the tracks.
Piedmont Train 76 left Kannapolis behind on its way to Raleigh. We tried Interstate 77 again but it was still backed up, so we took a surface street over to Interstate 485, the loop around Charlotte, and went clockwise around to North Polk Street, where we parked at the Lynx Light Rail station. I used the ticket machine and bought us round trip tickets then went to the platform.
Lynx Light RailThe Lynx Blue Line opened in 2007, was the first rail line of the Charlotte Area Transit System and the first major rapid rail service of any kind in the state. The 26-station, 19.3-mile line extends from its northern terminus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in University City through NoDa, Uptown and South End, then runs along South Boulevard to its southern terminus just north of Interstate 485 at the Pineville city limits.
The first phase of the line opened on November 24, 2007 between I-485/South Boulevard and 7th Street. It began operating nearly seventy years after the previous Charlotte streetcar system was dismantled in 1938 in favour of motorized bus transit. An extension from 7th Street, following a northeast path along the existing Norfolk Southern right-of-way along both North Davidson Street and North Tryon Street, to University City and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte opened on March 16, 2018
The line uses the Siemens S70 as rolling stock.
The Lynx Light Rail train arrived at the I-485/South Blvd station and we boarded the train for a ride which took just 25 minutes and made 15 stops. We left the station and travelled north to stations at Sharon Road, Arrowood, Archdale, Tyvola, Woodlawn, Scaleybark, New Bern, East/West Boulevard, Bland Street and Carson Street. We crossed Interstate 277 then saw the Charlotte Panthers NFL Stadium before our next stop at the 3rd Street/Convention Center, Charlotte Transportation Center/Arena (home of the NBA Charlotte Hornets), where most passengers detrained for tonight's game. The terminus of our ride was 7th Street and Dave and I detrained during the ten-minute layover.
Future trackage.
Our train before we departed 7th Street. We returned to Salisbury and stopped at Arby's for dinner before we returned to the Econo Lodge for the night. Tomorrow, my first ride behind Norfolk & Western 4-8-4 611.
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