Passenger trains haven’t rolled through Asheville since 1975, but there’s a serious plan from the North Carolina Department of Transportation to bring them back. Daniel Walton's recent story for Mountain Xpress connects the tracks between three decades of studies and recent federal infrastructure funding to a planned 140-mile route from Asheville east to Salisbury. We talk about the environmental and cultural factors playing into the rekindled interest in passenger rail, how the proposed line out of Asheville would feed into a wider web of passenger lines and a long timeline that could leave the project prone to shifting political and economic winds.

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