NC Railroad's grants help short lines, businesses get back on track post-Helene

By Julie Sneider, Senior Editor 

While North Carolinians brace for this year’s hurricane season, the state of North Carolina carries on with a long road to repair, restore and recover from the devastation that Hurricane Helene left in its wake in September 2024. 

The storm, which roared into the state on Sept. 27, wreaked havoc as it generated historic rainfall levels, strong winds, landslides and tornadoes. More than 100 people lost their lives, and state officials have estimated damage estimates to homes, businesses and infrastructure of all kinds at $60 billion.  

Millions of North Carolinians lost access to critical services such as water and sewer, electricity, telecommunications and health care facilities; thousands of miles of roads and bridges were damaged, cutting communities off and limiting access for residents, first responders and recovery teams.  

The hardest-hit areas were in western North Carolina, where the impact will be felt long term. Rebuilding housing, restoring infrastructure and revitalizing the economies of the hardest-hit communities will take several years to complete, state officials have said. 

In the early days of the storm’s aftermath, Carl Warren was feeling fortunate after realizing the footprint of the North Carolina Railroad Co. (NCRR), of which he serves as president and CEO, was left relatively unscathed. The state owns the 312-mile rail corridor that runs from Morehead City, located on North Carolina’s east coast, west to Charlotte. NCRR oversees the corridor, collaborating with businesses and communities to offer rail service along the way. Norfolk Southern Railway provides freight-rail and maintenance services on the line, while Amtrak provides passenger service. 

“We were able to take what is, in the grand scheme of things, a pretty small amount of money and make a big difference with it.” — Carl Warren, North Carolina Railroad Co.

“We were very fortunate and in a much better position than our neighbors in the western part of the state,” Warren says. “But we were just as surprised [at the devastation] as everybody else.” 

The damage to rail infrastructure was extreme. NS couldn’t resume freight-rail service to customers from Asheville and points west along its AS Line until May, as construction and engineering crews spent six months repairing and restoring track infrastructure that was destroyed by flooding. The line rebuild is expected to be completed this winter. 

Meanwhile, approximately 60 miles of CSX's track in Tennessee and North Carolina — part of the Class I’s Blue Ridge Subdivision — was severely affected by flooding. CSX officials estimate a return of service to the region sometime in fall 2025. In the meantime, freight-rail traffic continues to be rerouted. 

With NCRR’s corridor intact, Warren and his colleagues began thinking of ways the company could immediately help smaller railroads, rail-served customers and communities initiate their recovery. Warren recalls attending a meeting of the Railway Association of North Carolina, where rail industry officials spoke of incomprehensible damage to their communities. 

“I was with other folks who run short lines, and they were going around the table talking about what had been happening since the storm,” Warren recalls. “There were a couple of folks on the phone who were saying, ‘Yeah, I just got back the ability to use my cell phone yesterday,’ or ‘Gosh, I haven’t been out of my house for a week’ — and you start to think about all the things we take for granted.” 

After the meeting, Warren huddled with NCRR’s chief commercial officer and economic development team to figure out how the organization should respond in a way to make an immediate difference for their “shareholders” in the western part of the state — residents, businesses and communities. 

Warren says he knew from his earlier experiences working for two Class Is that it would take some time for federal disaster assistance to arrive in the hands of those who needed it the most. 

“I just knew there were businesses that were going to have immediate needs,” says Warren. “So, I went to my board, and I said that we have an opportunity to make a difference. And they were unanimously supportive of doing anything that we could as quickly as we could to get something going.” 

The result of those conversations led to NCRR launching the Back-on-Track Disaster Recovery Program, a commitment to provide $10 million in relief funding to support short lines in need of track infrastructure repair, andn rail-served industries and nonprofit economic development groups in need of operations support. The company announced the availability of the grant program less than two weeks after the hurricane hit. 

As of late June, $8.2 million in assistance has been awarded across Federal Emergency Management Agency-designated disaster areas to pay for the cost of clearing debris, repairing track, stabilizing operations and preserving jobs. According to NCRR, a total of 13 grants were awarded, with $3.5 million to Class II and III railroads for infrastructure and operational continuity, $4.5 million to rail-served businesses for site recovery and wage support, and $191,000 to nonprofits for financial stability and long-term planning. 

Several projects are underway, with $1.8 million still available if companies or nonprofits in those designated areas need funding.  

“We were in a position to help short lines get ready to operate because when the storm hit, it affected the Norfolk Southern line that fed traffic to that [impacted] area,” Warren says. “We had an opportunity to help these companies stay alive ... to make sure they were ready to start receiving and delivering carload traffic.” 

To ensure accountability, the grant funds are used to reimburse the grantees’ recovery expenses as the bills come in. The funds started flowing within days and weeks “and not months,” he adds. 

Additionally, NCRR early on provided some wage assistance to short-line rail workers who couldn’t return to work because their employers’ property wasn’t yet ready to reopen for business.  

“That support was something that had to be done on a pretty quick basis,” he says. “We couldn’t do that permanently — that gets expensive after a while — but we felt it was essential that we help out.” 

One rail property that received Back-on-Track assistance was the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in Bryson City, a tourist train that offers riders views of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Nantahala National Forest and Fontana Lake, as well as round-trip special event trains such as The Polar Express. After hurricane-related flooding brought washouts and mudslides that destabilized train tracks, the railroad had to cease operation. Then NCRR stepped in.  

“We were able to help stabilize their track by [funding] about 292 carloads of ballast and removing a lot of debris,” says Warren. “Happily, they were able to restore service by November in time for the Polar Express to run.” 

In the big picture, a $10 million grant program against $60 billion in hurricane damage might not seem like much. But Warren notes that the NCRR was able to turn around help quickly as recipients also waited for state and federal resources to clear. 

“We were able to take what is, in the grand scheme of things, a pretty small amount of money and make a big difference with it,” says Warren.