Stations With Worst Locations

Buffalo-Depew, NY

Detroit, MI

Jacksonville, FL

Miami, FL

Richmond-Staples Mill, VA

Notable mentions:

Atlanta, GA

Charlotte, NC

Orlando, FL

Albany-Rensselaer, NY

I would also add Minneapolis and San Francisco, but the nearby stations are located in other major cities so their locations is not necessarily bad. Rail connections are also available to Minneapolis/San Francisco except from the southbound CS (technically you could connect to Caltrain but it is very roundabout). Buffalo and Richmond have some trains that serve a more central station. Miami has a nearby Metrorail station and Detroit is building a streetcar so I guess that leaves Jacksonville as the worst. Any other stations far away from their intended city?

Savannah,GA/Charleston,SC/Atlanta/Miami/Beaumont,TX/Maricopa, AZ.,San Antonio, TX,Williams Junction, AZ, Sanderson, TX, etc. etc.

Not to mention Trenton NJ. But whether there is any good location for a station in Trenton is debatable. .

Rail travel in Miami was mostly built around Florida East Coast Railway which unfortunately has been on strike since the early 60s. North Miami and North Miami Beach had very nice train stations. If you live in North Dade the best bet is to board at the Hollywood (Broward county) station. I remember back in the days when you could get on the train in Opa-Locka and ride to downtown Miami - no more.

Really? FEC has been on strike? Then what are all these FEC trains running by Melbourne every day?

AAF Brightline will restore rail service substantially on the FEC ROW to Miami Central starting next year, and eventually it will connect to Orlando International Airport.

KauaiJohn said:

Rail travel in Miami was mostly built around Florida East Coast Railway which unfortunately has been on strike since the early 60s. North Miami and North Miami Beach had very nice train stations. If you live in North Dade the best bet is to board at the Hollywood (Broward county) station. I remember back in the days when you could get on the train in Opa-Locka and ride to downtown Miami - no more.

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Tri-Rail is planned to open a branch from Downtown Miami to the main line at Metrorail Transfer in 2018. Had Amtrak known this was happening, the smartest move would have been to go to the downtown station rather than the airport. Far more passengers on an LD train are going downtown rather than the airport. What is the latest on Amtrak moving to the airport? While it is still not a great location, it is much better than where they are now.

That's for sure, the terminal should have always been down town.

brianpmcdonnell17 said:

KauaiJohn said:

Rail travel in Miami was mostly built around Florida East Coast Railway which unfortunately has been on strike since the early 60s. North Miami and North Miami Beach had very nice train stations. If you live in North Dade the best bet is to board at the Hollywood (Broward county) station. I remember back in the days when you could get on the train in Opa-Locka and ride to downtown Miami - no more.

Click to expand...

Tri-Rail is planned to open a branch from Downtown Miami to the main line at Metrorail Transfer in 2018. Had Amtrak known this was happening, the smartest move would have been to go to the downtown station rather than the airport. Far more passengers on an LD train are going downtown rather than the airport. What is the latest on Amtrak moving to the airport? While it is still not a great location, it is much better than where they are now.

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The Tri-Rail Station at Miami Central will not really be capable of handling an Amtrak train. Tri-Rail has just two tracks at the station. There is no easily available extra space for additional tracks. An Amtrak LD train siting there for extended time occupying one of the Tri-Rail tracks will probably not please Tri-Rail very much. So pretty much from the get go, Amtrak in that station was not on the cards.

Even for Amtrak on FEC, the plan always was to move Amtrak trains over to the Tri-rail/CSX line around West Palm Beach and then use the Hialeah or the Airport station for it.

Since the Airport is now well connected with the Central station area by Metro it really does not matter all that much, provided of course Amtrak starts using the Airport station, which is another matter altogether.

I don't know if they are still on strike or if FEC just quit passenger service because of the strike. I'll sure never forget during the strike when they blew up the tressell by Greynolds Park with a whole car full of Budwiser and a whole car full of Easter candy. Sure made fishing from the bridge interesting for a while.

Grand Forks. Located well away from the populated part of the city, though easily accessed from I-29. But woe to you if you don't have a car or someone picking you up.

Another inconvenient one is Olympia-Lacey WA. Located far from downtown Olympia and the state government complex. A real wasted opportunity, IYAM, though it makes sense when you consider it in terms of through-trains.

Columbus, Ohio. (Heh heh.)

After that, Maricopa (for Phoenix) is easily the worst, just because of how huge Phoenix is, followed by Williams Junction where you literally can't get off the train without a connecting bus. Olympia-Lacey and Grand Forks and Albany-Rensselaer and Waterloo IN (for Fort Wayne) are honorable mentions

If a station name is hyphenated, you can guess it's in the wrong city. If it has "for _other city_" in the timetable, it is also likely to be in the wrong city. Most of the stations without these notations are in reasonably plausible locations.

But Syracuse, NY is actually pretty inconvenient too (thanks to the NY Central ripping out the line through downtown).

KauaiJohn said:

I don't know if they are still on strike or if FEC just quit passenger service because of the strike. I'll sure never forget during the strike when they blew up the tressell by Greynolds Park with a whole car full of Budwiser and a whole car full of Easter candy. Sure made fishing from the bridge interesting for a while.

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FEC quit passenger service for a little less than two years and then was forced to resume passenger service by th courts. This was finally discontinued in 1968.

FEC strike was mostly by non operating employees, so it continued to operate through the strike. I am not exactly sure when the strike officially ended/fizzled out. But FEC has been operating freight trains without much of a break at least since 1968. In the past it was mostly limestone trains, but now it is mostly high value inter-modals and soon it will be AAF/Brightline passenger trains. too.

In some ways Union Station in Chicago isn't great; on the edge of the loop (wrong side of the river) and no direct connection to the rapid transit system. Obviously compared to a lot of other cities, it's stellar.

That sounds right jis, I left Miami 30 years ago and the memory is fading. The old railroad right of way here on Kauai (cane haul trains) became obsolete when the sugar mill closed and the right of way has been converted to a bike and pedestrian path along most of the east coast of Kauai.

Metra Electric Rider said:

In some ways Union Station in Chicago isn't great; on the edge of the loop (wrong side of the river) and no direct connection to the rapid transit system. Obviously compared to a lot of other cities, it's stellar.

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Due to there being 4 commuter rail terminals in the downtown area and the separate rapid transit loop, I wonder if there is any way to link them all. What about an airport style people mover linking the downtown Metra and CTA stations?

KauaiJohn said:

That sounds right jis, I left Miami 30 years ago and the memory is fading. The old railroad right of way here on Kauai (cane haul trains) became obsolete when the sugar mill closed and the right of way has been converted to a bike and pedestrian path along most of the east coast of Kauai.

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When I visited Maui many moon ago the Kaanapali Railway was still running. It was a fun ride. I have heard that it is no longer running.

I rode that a few years ago too. It was fun. The old cane haul engine still run, they used to give rides but as housing density increased there were too many complaints so they stopped,

Actually NY Penn Station is also relatively poorly located when compared to Grand Central Terminal. That is why forever people from NJ would rather go to Grand Central somehow, some way and suffer from great envy of the MNRR folks. And LIRR is spending umpteen gazillion to get to Grand Central using the new East Side Connection anyday now.

Meanwhile NY City is trying to improve the Penn Station location by building up west of it in the Hudson Yard area. So we will see how all that goes.

brianpmcdonnell17 said:

Metra Electric Rider said:

In some ways Union Station in Chicago isn't great; on the edge of the loop (wrong side of the river) and no direct connection to the rapid transit system. Obviously compared to a lot of other cities, it's stellar.

Click to expand...

Due to there being 4 commuter rail terminals in the downtown area and the separate rapid transit loop, I wonder if there is any way to link them all. What about an airport style people mover linking the downtown Metra and CTA stations?

Click to expand...

There have been various proposals to do just that over the years. One of my friends did one as a class project in grad school.

The biggest problems are all the existing tunnels under downtown Chicago (the el, old streetcar/road tunnels under the river and the old freight tunnel system which is under every loop street) and of course, the ever constant one of money. When the stations were built, we still had an extensive streetcar network (largest in the world unless we were second to LA - we had been the largest cablecar city too, but they were switched over to electric traction iirc) linking them a bit better- obviously there are buses but not directly.

For a while there was talk about turning the old main post office into an HSR terminal with a link to the Clinton Blue Line station which is immediately adjacent to it and I think there may be a plan to build a connection to the blue line at some point but I'm not 100% certain - and it won't be anytime soon.

KauaiJohn said:

I rode that a few years ago too. It was fun. The old cane haul engine still run, they used to give rides but as housing density increased there were too many complaints so they stopped,

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I guess you'll have some rail to ride in Honolulu whenever they manage to complete that line. Traffic is unbelievably horrendous around Honolulu. When I was last there I stayed at a hotel in Waikiki and had to go out to the north east of the island for several engagements. Even getting from Waikiki to Like Like Highway was a nightmare.

neroden said:

If a station name is hyphenated, you can guess it's in the wrong city.

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Ha, good point. Even the Bingen-White Salmon station is located in Bingen, which is one-third the size of White Salmon...though neither is exactly a booming metropolis.

I think you could make an exception for Bloomington-Normal. The station is in Normal, which is moderately smaller than Bloomington. But the station is right on the edge of Illinois State University, which must surely be a big source of passengers.

Another exception might be Champaign-Urbana. The station is located in downtown Champaign, the larger of the two cities. And it's within reasonable walking distance of the University of Illinois, whose campus straddles the two municipalities.

fairviewroad said:

neroden said:

If a station name is hyphenated, you can guess it's in the wrong city.

Click to expand...

Ha, good point. Even the Bingen-White Salmon station is located in Bingen, which is one-third the size of White Salmon...though neither is exactly a booming metropolis.

I think you could make an exception for Bloomington-Normal. The station is in Normal, which is moderately smaller than Bloomington. But the station is right on the edge of Illinois State University, which must surely be a big source of passengers.

Another exception might be Champaign-Urbana. The station is located in downtown Champaign, the larger of the two cities. And it's within reasonable walking distance of the University of Illinois, whose campus straddles the two municipalities.

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Only thing is everybody (well, ok, lots of people round here) calls them B-N and C-U on a normal basis anyways.

Jis, don't remind me, I have to go to Honolulu next week and for the first time in years will have to rent a car since the annual meeting is not on the regular bus line. The traffic there is horrendous.

Metra Electric Rider said:

fairviewroad said:

neroden said:

If a station name is hyphenated, you can guess it's in the wrong city.

Click to expand...

Ha, good point. Even the Bingen-White Salmon station is located in Bingen, which is one-third the size of White Salmon...though neither is exactly a booming metropolis.

I think you could make an exception for Bloomington-Normal. The station is in Normal, which is moderately smaller than Bloomington. But the station is right on the edge of Illinois State University, which must surely be a big source of passengers.

Another exception might be Champaign-Urbana. The station is located in downtown Champaign, the larger of the two cities. And it's within reasonable walking distance of the University of Illinois, whose campus straddles the two municipalities.

Click to expand...

Only thing is everybody (well, ok, lots of people round here) calls them B-N and C-U on a normal basis anyways.

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I haven't seen those abbreviations before, and I'm guessing that googling them will be less than helpful, but they aren't the station codes for them either, so your point is what exactly?

And then there is Princeton Jct. at West Windsor - quite a mouthful. Some of the station boards actually carry the full moniker.