Same Place, Two Different Stations

Early in the Amtrak era, places such as Houston, Chicago, and Richmond (VA) had two different Amtrak stations functioning at the same time.

Elko NV had one location for eastbound trains and another location for westbound.

Of course, New York and Philadelphia had more than one station.

San Antonio used the Sunset Depot for the SUNSET and the site of the MP depot for the INTER-AMERICAN.

If we include non-Amtrak stations, we could include Charlottesville (VA), Birmingham (AL), and Chillicothe (IL).

How about when the BROADWAY and CAPITOL both operated? Did Pittsburgh have both the P&LE(B&O) station and Pennsy station in use?

Capitol did not operate as a separate train on B&O through Pittsburgh in its initial incarnation under Amtrak AFAIK. It operated as a section of Broadway Ltd.on Pennsy under Amtrak, until it finally became a separate train on ex-B&O to Pittsburgh. At that point it continue to use the current station, for a while involving a backup move to get to it. Oddly enough, soon thereafter, it was the Broadway that was routed on B&O west of Pittsburgh, while the Capitol was routed over Conrail (ex-Pennsy and ex-NYC) via Cleveland, west of Pittsburgh. Then the Broadway was discontinued, reinstated for a bit as Three Rivers and finally gone.

Similarly, National Limited under Amtrak never operated on B&O. It operated through Harrisburg on the Pennsy AFAIK.

Technically Newark now has two stations - Newark Penn and Newark Liberty International Airport. Richmond VA continues to have two stations.

I think technically Newark airport station is in Elizabeth, NJ not Newark. Maybe someone can correct me on this.

Until the Chief was moved to the former CB&Q in the late 1990's, Galsburg IL had two stations. One was for the Chief and the other for the Zephyers.

Shawn Ryu said:

I think technically Newark airport station is in Elizabeth, NJ not Newark. Maybe someone can correct me on this.

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Consider yourself corrected.

The Newark Airport Station is located in Newark.

Part of Newark Airport is indeed located in Elizabeth, the southernmost part including part of 1 terminal. But the bulk of the airport is located in Newark.

If the goal is just to name municipalities with more than one Amtrak station located in that municipality's borders, here are a few more just off the top my head:

Boston

Los Angeles

Milwaukee

Oakland

Philadelphia

San Diego

Newark Airport Station is in Newark, not Elizabeth. Only the extreme south end of the airport including Terminal A is in Elizabeth NJ. The station is north of Terminal C.

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I havent been in Stockton, Cal. in several years ,but isnt there Two Stations there also? (Seems like ACE Trains used one and San Joaquins the other, cant remember which had the Busses???) :unsure:

I know that it took Amtrak a few years to consolidate everything into Chicago Union Station, but I cannot recall how many stations they were stuck using on A-Day. Likewise, it took Amtrak over 20 years to get out of NYG.

As far as multiple "main" stations in town without a direct connection, the biggest example left is Boston (BON/BOS), due to the lack of a decent connection from central Boston to the route to Maine.

Edit: Also, going beyond Amtrak, you have Lorton/Auto Train and Lorton/VRE a few blocks from one another (I think).

If you go beyond Amtrak it starts getting very dense. Newark Nj comes in with a third mainline station - BNW Newark Broad St. New York comes in with NYG Grand Central, 125th St., Marble Hill, a few on the Harlem and NH Lines, and a bunch on LIRR including the Granddaddy of 'em all, Jamaica - all in one of the five boroughs that constitute New York City.

jimhudson said:

I havent been in Stockton, Cal. in several years ,but isnt there Two Stations there also? (Seems like ACE Trains used one and San Joaquins the other, cant remember which had the Busses???) :unsure:

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There are 2 Amtrak stations in Stockton:

SKN - San Joaquin St. Station - used by Bakersfield-Oakland San Joaquins

SKT - Cabral (or Downtown) Station - used by Bakersfield-Sacramento San Joaquins (and Altamont Commuter Express trains)

Stockton, CA does indeed have two stations.

SKN - Stockton/San Joaquin Street serves trains 711, 712, 713, 714, 715, 716, 717, and 718 on the San Joaquin Route between OKJ and BFD. This is the staffed Amtrak Station in Stockton that serves as the main bus connection as well to San Jose, Sacramento, and Redding as well as a bus connection to the other Stockton Station, SKT.

SKT - Stockton/ACE Station (Downtown/Weber St.) serves trains 701, 702, 703, and 704 on the San Joaquin Route between SAC and BFD. This station building itself and platform are used by ACE Trains only as the track by the platform is a stub that ends at the northern end of the station platform. There is a Quik-Trak Machine on the ACE rail platform but it is broken and somewhat vandalized as of the time of this posting. The Physical Amtrak stop is in the middle of the street at the Railroad Crossing on Weber Street. Only one car (or two sets of doors) will open at this stop. Bus connections to Oakland/Emeryville/San Francisco as well as San Jose and to the other Stockton Station (SKN) serve this stop.

Only other Example that comes to mind off the top of my head is in Ventura, CA just north of Oxnard. There are two stations, one for Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner Route (Ventura) by the Fairgounds and another for MetroLink (East Ventura/Montalvo). There has been talk of having MetroLink extend to the Ventura Station by the Fairgrounds however it is single tracked at that point and the train sets lay-up for the night on three storage tracks by the East Ventura Station.

Chicago's IC station remained in use until 1972---possibly 1973 at the very latest.

Then the remaining Amtrak trains on the Illinois Central (Gulf) moved over to Union Station.

Northwestern and La Salle stations remained in use for years later for non-Amtrak commuter trains and Rock Island service to Peoria and the Quad Cities.

Going beyond Amtrak:

Newark still has two intercity terminals serving separate destinations (Newark Penn and Newark Broad St), so does New York (Penn and Grand Central), and Chicago still has quite a lot (LaSalle, Millennium, Oglivie, Union).

(I know that NJT, Metra, and Metro-North are officially "commuter rail", but I can't help but think of Hackettstown to Newark as an intercity trip, and the same with Kenosha or South Bend to Chicago, or Wassaic to New York City.)

I'm not considering the case where a single line stops multiple times in the same city; I'm thinking here of cases where you arrive at different train stations depending on where you came from, even though you have the same destination. Which are also cases where you may have to "change train stations" to complete your trip. I guess I'm really thinking of examples of "bad/failed connctions" in intercity travel.

Stockton is another example. Santa Clara was, but it's been fixed by more through-routing. I'd argue that Oakland/Emeryville/SF 4th St Caltrain/BART Embarcadero qualify too. You could also make a case for Seattle King St., where Sounder and Amtrak have different entrances and you must connect via the street, and Link is a block away; and Tacoma, where Sounder and Amtrak are supposed to move to the same station, but are currently several blocks apart.

Montreal still has two downtown terminals, as well. (I won't consider Europe because this kind of thing happens all the time there.)

Amtrak serves Baltimore's Penn Station, but MARC serves both Penn and Camden Stations on separate lines.

Lynchburg VA might have had two depots in use at the same time: one for the CRESCENT and the other for the MOUNTAINEER / HILLTOPPER.

Not sure though.

Yes, Amtrak did use both the CP (Windsor) and CN stations in Montreal with the ADIRONDACK and MONTREALER.

Salt Lake City is another example when the CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR called at the UP depot and the RIO GRANDE ZEPHYR used the D&RGW depot.

By the way, was the pre-Amtrak INTERNATIONAL using the GN depot in Vancouver, BC or the CN depot in its last years?

Small detail.... In Amtrak era there was no California Zephyr when the Rio Grande Zephyr was running. The train to Oakland was called San Francisco Zephyr, and it passed through Ogden for a significant part of its existence.

Indeed the SFZ did run through Ogden. I spent a night in Ogden once, courtesy of Amtrak, when the westbound SFZ arrived 4 hours late and I missed my connection to the northbound Pioneer. This was 1978.

Lynchburg did have two stations. Way back, the N&W and C&O used Union Station downtown and Southern used Kemper Street Station. After C&O dropped passenger service on the James River Line N&W then pulled out of Union and had a station built far out on the SW side of town (now near Liberty University). Both Kemper Street and the N&W stations were used under Amtrak although only Kemper Street is used now. Pre-Amtrak trains off the Southern on to the N&W west to Roanoke and Tennessee always used Kemper Street. Only all N&W routed trains from Norfolk and Roanoke to Norfolk used Union and later the substitute station.

While the SFZ never served Salt Lake City, and always went through Ogden, the Desert Wind did service Salt Lake City while the RGZ was running. The Desert Wind used the UP depot, and the RGZ used the Rio Grande station. I actually did that connection once.

Another Amtrak-era city with two stations was Pomona, CA. When the Southwest Chief was still running via Pasadena and Pomona, it stopped at a station in the northern part of the city (PON), and the Sunset stopped at the then-deserted ex-SP station right downtown (POS).

Twin Star Rocket said:

Salt Lake City is another example when the CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR called at the UP depot and the RIO GRANDE ZEPHYR used the D&RGW depot.

By the way, was the pre-Amtrak INTERNATIONAL using the GN depot in Vancouver, BC or the CN depot in its last years?

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The GN depot was demolished around 1965, so after that it used the CN (now "Pacific Central") station.

zephyr17 said:

While the SFZ never served Salt Lake City, and always went through Ogden, the Desert Wind did service Salt Lake City while the RGZ was running. The Desert Wind used the UP depot, and the RGZ used the Rio Grande station. I actually did that connection once.

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Similarly, on my second trip on the Pioneer in 1982, I made the SLC connection from the RGZ. As I recall there was an enthusiastic taxi driver with a minivan who took several of us from the D&RGW station to the UP station.

zephyr17 said:

While the SFZ never served Salt Lake City, and always went through Ogden, the Desert Wind did service Salt Lake City while the RGZ was running. The Desert Wind used the UP depot, and the RGZ used the Rio Grande station. I actually did that connection once.

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Yup. As did the Pioneer. The Pioneer originally was an SLC - SEA train with cross platform transfer to/from it at Ogden from the SFZ. I had done that more than once. Through cars came later.