There has been an advertised connection between the Piedmont and Star at various points in time over the past 10 years. The Piedmont schedule has remained largely unchanged throughout; it is Amtrak's annual schedule tinkering that sometimes makes and sometimes breaks the connection.
I for one am glad that NCDOT has
not made a point of adjusting the Piedmont's schedule to maintain the connection; maintaining the Piedmont's consistent and convenient schedule is very important to its success as a corridor service. I'm not sure if anyone was keeping statistics from the years when the connection was advertised, but my guess is that out of the roughly 200 or so who rode the Piedmont daily, at best 5 or 10 would be transferring to/from the Star.
Right now, I'm not sure why they don't advertise the 76->91 connection at Cary, though. This could be done without any schedule adjustment at all. The Piedmont route is short enough and reliable enough that 63 minutes buffer should be plenty, even if 76 is late and 91 is on time. 76 arrives in CYN at 8:24pm; 91 departs at 9:27pm. If I were you, I would certainly feel comfortable booking this trip.
I suppose they could also advertise a 92->79 connection at Cary or Raleigh as well, but it would be inconvenient, with scheduled layovers of 8hr 48min (at Cary - 8:15am to 5:03pm) or 7hr 56min (at Raleigh - 8:54am to 4:50pm.) You could also book this trip comfortably, if you don't mind spending 8 hours in town. I would recommend transferring in Raleigh - take the (free)
R-Line circulator bus and find something to do in town while you wait.
Once the midday Piedmont starts in March, there could be a 92->75 connection at Cary. If the schedule for 92 stays roughly the same, it would leave about a 3.5 hour layover. 92 arrives at CYN at 8:15am; 75 will depart sometime around 11:45am (though no official schedule has been released yet.). 3.5 hours should be just about right for a guaranteed connection considering 92's timekeeping.
