Last year was the busiest ever for North Carolina’s passenger trains

North Carolina’s state-subsidized passenger trains had a record year in 2022.

The Piedmont and Carolinian carried 522,550 people last year, according to the N.C. Department of Transportation. That eclipses the previous annual record of 481,491 in 2014.

Gov. Roy Cooper announced the milestone Wednesday at NCDOT’s annual Transportation Summit at the Raleigh Convention Center.

“At a time when travel patterns have seen significant disruption, this is great news,” Cooper told the gathering. “It highlights just how bright North Carolina’s public transportation future is.”

Ridership dipped after 2014 as a series of track improvement projects disrupted service for a few years, said Jason Orthner, direction of NCDOT’s Rail Division. It got a boost in 2019 after NCDOT and Amtrak began a third daily round trip of the Piedmont, then dropped sharply in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed travel.

Orthner says much of the strong rebound can be credited to increased marketing, through social and other media, aimed at college students and other potential riders.

“We put a lot of effort into both direct marketing and earned media to make sure folks are aware of the service,” he said in an interview. “I think that’s paid off.”

NC By Train, the state’s intercity rail program, began in 1990 with the Carolinian, which makes a dozen stops in the state on a daily round trip between Charlotte and New York City. The Piedmont started making daily round trips between Raleigh and Charlotte in 1995, with seven stops in between.

The trains are operated by Amtrak, at a cost to the state of about $9 million a year.

NC By Train set a monthly record for riders in July, then broke it in September and again in October, when 55,493 rode the Piedmont and Carolinian. The trains also had their best December on record, according to NCDOT.

The numbers don’t include four long-distance Amtrak trains that make several stops as they pass through the state between New York and the Southeast.