DOVER -  Work to improve drainage and safety of the railway through Dover is nearly complete.

The combination of public and private projects with an estimated $4.5 million price tag includes closing four railroad crossings, improving one crossing with gates and adding a new crossing with gates and lights at the Railroad Street Crossing at Percy's Plaza.

Work also includes a 1,700-foot retaining wall along a section of Railroad Street and one section of old pipe replaced by a steel-reinforced concrete trestle.

Railroad crossings being closed include those at Old Dover Road, West Street, Company Street and an unnamed crossing, the second crossing upon entering Dover from west to east on Kornegay Street or Old U.S. 70.

The drainage work is being done in a $1.5 million project by Crowder Construction, based in Charlotte, and is intended to improve storm runoff and prevent standing pools of water in the rail corridor through town.

"This project is a good example of our commitment to build a better railroad for the people of North Carolina," said Scott Saylor, N.C. Railroad president. "Rail service to the Port at Morehead City, our military bases and rail-served industries in Eastern North Carolina is critically important to economic development, especially in the current economic climate."

With the trestles removed, "what is going back is wider, stronger and safer," said Thomas Nash, project manager fro Crowder. "The pile and panel wall consists every 10 feet of galvanized H-pile that is set into concrete in a drilled shaft that is 21½ feet deep. What goes between those piles is prefabricated concrete panel."

Nash said one pipe crossing involved boring a 36-inch hole under the track.

The work involved no snags, he said. "We were very lucky, fortunate. It was a smooth operation."

N.C. Railroad replaced three segments of railway on its Goldsboro-to-New Bern track over the past several years with track to support the 110-ton to 125-ton cars it now carries. That joint-project with Norfolk-Southern cost about $5.5 million.

 The state owns a 317-mile corridor of track that links Charlotte to the port at Morehead City  through Greensboro and Raleigh, according to information from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. It carries 60 freight trains and eight passenger trains daily and is the state's oldest corporation.

Train service on the state-owned North Carolina Railroad tracks is operated under a lease agreement with, in this region, Norfolk-Southern Railway and in the Raleigh-Cary area, CSX Transportation.

DOT is working with those three companies to upgrade the rail corridors to improve safety, efficiency, and capacity for both freight and passenger train service in the state.

The 2009 Rail Plan presented by state transportation secretary Gene Conti refers specifically to the state's need to improve railway connections between the Global TransPark and the Morehead City Port.

Sue Book can be reached at (252) 635-5666 or sbook@freedomenc.com.