Amtrak Saddest Stations? <POLL QUESTION>

That might be tougher. There are really outstanding stations with poor flow, such as Chicago and Washington.

SwingMan wrote:That might be tougher. There are really outstanding stations with poor flow, such as Chicago and Washington.

Yup. Likewise, for all its flaws NYP has a fleet of restaurant choices and lots of connectivity, and KCS is beautiful, but Amtrak operations are shoehorned into a corner. Even PHL is a little flawed (forced reverse for the Keystones, not on the SEPTA subway system), but I think it approaches "best" status. Maybe LAX is better - I've never been.

Tadman wrote:Did Amtrak ever stop at Pawtucket-Central Falls? I know trains still go underneath every day. That place has been a dump for years.

No, never an Amtrak stop and it was discontinued as an MBTA commuter stop back in 1981. A few years ago there was a plan to rehab the rather elegant station building for commercial use, but nothing ever came of that and the surrounding neighborhood doesn't exactly invite outside investment.

mtuandrew wrote:Even PHL is a little flawed (forced reverse for the Keystones, not on the SEPTA subway system), but I think it approaches "best" status. Maybe LAX is better - I've never been.

There was a passageway from 30th Street Station to the Market Frankford line subway station but it was closed about 1980

Maybe LAX is better - I've never been.

LAX is beautiful in all respects with an nicely restored Art Deco interior, lots of activity, restaurants, a good lounge, and views from the platforms. Grand Central Station is my East Coast favorite.

Jehochman wrote:

Maybe LAX is better - I've never been.

LAX is beautiful in all respects with an nicely restored Art Deco interior, lots of activity, restaurants, a good lounge, and views from the platforms. Grand Central Station is my East Coast favorite.

Grand Central Terminal: the saddest station that Amtrak lost.

You can blame the congress critters for forcing Amtrak out of GCT,but GCT recovered nicely.
LAUS is a restored station on the Amtrak side,a modern transit subway/light rail facilty on the other side of the concourse.

Though it's only a train-a-day-er, I'm quite fond of Denver Union Station. post rebuild. The headhouse is a packed buzz of activity, of restaurants, travelers and a hotel. There's an underground busloop under the platforms for local, regional, and intercity buses, and light rail connections. The platform is open-access from many different directions, rather than fenced off for Amtrak kindergarten line-ups. There's level boarding for high and low floor trains. The old headhouse is a lovely building, and the new trainshed frames the station building nicely. The urban area around is nicely filled in and the station is generally surrounded in high-quality public space.

Jehochman wrote:

Maybe LAX is better - I've never been.

Grand Central Station is my East Coast favorite.

Grand Central Station is the name of a Post Office, and a subway stop.

Grand Central TERMINAL is a railroad station.

Lee

^Amen.

Newark is rough for sure. But they have started cleaning up the platform area. The one closest to the station has had its brick water blasted and the overheads cleaned and painted. Definitely an improvement for an old classic.

My thoughts on Newark, aside from the aggressive panhandling and shady characters on occasion, is that the platform level just seemed dingy. Dark and dank. And this is NOT a subterranean station. P.s. it's also the station I departed for basic on the new Amtrak Crescent in April, 1979 (destination: Anniston, AL).

Of the ones I've used I have to nominate Redding,CA. It's just the platform of the old station. That station building is still there, but boarded up and used for storage. The train stops in the wee hours of the morning and there is nothing open nearby. A sad and bleak place to sit on your suitcase waiting for the coast starlate to roll in.

Others will disagree but I will say Portland, Oregon.

Architecturally, a beautiful station. Functionally, a lot of issues:

1. Poor HVAC system. The building is an oven in the summer months, requiring massive industrial sized fans positioned throughout the building, to move around the hot air. But there's nowhere to escape the heat until you are finally allowed to board your train.
2. Poor set-up for preparing riders for boarding, forcing riders to standing in long, winding lines crisscrossing the waiting room. Boarding a Cascades train is unnecessarily tedious and time-consuming. Often times this means a rider has to stand and wait in three separate lines - once to get a ticket, once for a seat assignment, and once to actually board the train.
3. Because the platform access requires crossing active tracks, riders cannot wait on the platform for a train, thus compounding the problem of #2.
4. Access to parking lot is two blocks away and requires walking under a bridge frequented by homeless persons. (During the winter after getting off the 509 from Seattle with a young child in tow, this isn't exactly the most pleasant experience.)
5. Insufficient seating for riders. There's plenty of room, why isn't there plenty of seating? The morning rush or the afternoon rush with the Starlight, Builder and a Cascades train or two really maxes out the station.

Second place would go to Tukwila, Washington - a plywood station that makes an AmShack look luxurious. Although I believe that station is being replaced with a "permanent" station made out of concrete.

Seattle, fortunately, is no longer on the list.

Portland has enough service that it could definitely make use of modernized platforms, I'll agree, but the lining up is mostly a function of Amtrak practice in the pacific Northwest. They do it in Seattle too