Obscure Train Stations

[greatcats]

I just posted on Trip reports my trip to San Francisco orginating at Williams Junction, Arizona, which certianly qualifies as one of the less obvious places to board a train. What others do you know of would qualify? - I hear there are some in Canada! :unsure:

 

[Everydaymatters]

Your trip report was great. Down the tracks from Williams is the Kingman station. If you can call it a station. I suggest that Kingman qualifies as obscure station as well.

 

[greatcats]

I would not call Kingman station obscure. It is right in the middle of town. It is a shame that this intact looking building is " under renovation " ( and those signs look real old! ) and not used, for whatever reasons. ( probably something like it belongs to the town and there are insufficient funds to make it usable. As you know, there is a waiting room and crew room in two storefronts a half block away, which is a little unusual.

 

[edding]

It's been quite awhile since I've stopped here, but at one point the train station in East Lansing, MI was an intersection of a street. The train literally stopped mid intersection and you de-boarded onto the road. This would have been about 15 years ago. Don't know what the situation there is now.

 

[MrFSS]

It's been quite awhile since I've stopped here, but at one point the train station in East Lansing, MI was an intersection of a street. The train literally stopped mid intersection and you de-boarded onto the road. This would have been about 15 years ago. Don't know what the situation there is now.

The South Shore Line does that in Michigan City today. There was a station, but it is empty and for sale.

 

[yarrow]

we have become familiar with the elyria, ohio station as we have a son at oberlin college which is 8 miles from elyria. the station is composed of two trailers bolted together. it was the original amtrak cleveland lakeshore station until a new one was built and the trailers were moved to elyria in 1976 where they remain to this day. it is not located in a choice part of elyria.

 

[had8ley]

I'd say Beaumont, TX but there is no station; just a dropping off point on the side of the tracks.

 

[VentureForth]

Mineola, TX is pretty obscure. Since I haven't boarded there - only detrained there and immediately ran to my parked car - I seem to recall that there was only a building there (that wasn't used).

Salisbury, NC is not so much obscure, but "huh?" It's a gorgeous, renovated Southern Railroad terminal building, but it's all locked up and used by non-rail related businesses and occasionally opened up for banquets, etc. The Amtrak waiting area is a little tiny room off on one end. Nice enough, but sad to see passenger service relegated to a tiny portion of what once was a grand station.

Can't really leave out Albuquerque. Though less obsure now because of the platform improvements for the NM Railrunner, the building itself is a very old Santa Fe building once used for frieght. Very sad because it butts up against a HUGE, brand new Greyhound terminal building.

And so long as I'm veering more and more off topic, Lamy, NM is pretty cool - looks like it should be in movies.

Oh - so many stations that were so beautiful and no longer in use, too, like Belen, NM... Sigh.

 

[Steve4031]

Rantoul, IL is not really obscure, but it was where I used to get on and off the train when visiting my Grandparents. When I was in high school, I rode the City of New Orleans to Rantoul, and was the only one to get off. I did not realize this until I was stepping onto the platform. As soon as both feet were on solid ground, the conductor picked up the step box, radioed a highball to the Engineer, and the train was rolling. If it was stopped a minute, I would be surprised. I thought it was cool that a 15 car passenger train stopped to let me off.

If you really want obscure, ride the Canadian between Toronto and Winnipeg. Nearly every station could be classified as obscure. Many are flag stops, except for 3 or 4, they do not have platforms or any structures.

 

[MrFSS]

The Alaska RR going north from Anchorage to Fairbanks will stop at a driveway if someone needs to get on or off. A boarding passenger stands out by the road and waves at the engineer to stop. Really strange.

 

[NS VIA FAN]

......... I hear there are some in Canada! :unsure:

Here’s a photo of VIA “Katz”. It’s a stop (with 48 hour advanced notice) for the eastbound Canadian on the CPR mainline 100 miles east of Vancouver. The equivalent stop for the westbound Canadian is a couple of miles away across the Fraser River on the CN mainline in Hope, BC. This is directional running territory: all CP, CN, VIA and Rocky Mountaineer trains use the CPR eastbound. Westbound, all trains are on CN.

A similar situation exists in Northern Ontario where the westbound Canadian uses the CPR station in Parry Sound and the eastbound uses the CN station.

Does Amtrak serve any towns that have two different stations due to directional running? I believe the CZ did this in Nevada on the former WP & SP.

 

[wayman]

And so long as I'm veering more and more off topic, Lamy, NM is pretty cool - looks like it should be in movies.

It will be, and soon!

In September I took the Santa Fe Southern to Lamy, had lunch at the station, and quite enjoyed my hour-plus layover while waiting for the (right on time) eastbound Southwest Chief. There was a local rancher and railfan who comes down several times a week to see the trains and find interesting travelers to talk to, and he's quite a nice fellow. He said just a few weeks prior to my visit there was a movie filmed there using steam power they'd brought into the area. Can't remember the name of it (and sometimes those names change between production and release), but be on the lookout for a train movie sometime in the next year and you'll see the Lamy station on the big screen.

He also said that there was a day sometime in the past year when the Chiefs were off kilter such that they both arrived at the same time, while there was also a Grand Luxe train parked there, on a day when the Santa Fe Southern came in, such that there were four trains at the Lamy station simultaneously, something it probably hadn't seen for decades.

And that a few weeks before I was there they'd had torrential rains--something like twelve or eighteen inches--which flooded the tracks, the platform, and the station waiting room. When the Chief came in, passengers stepped off the train into standing water. It was enough rain to take out a switch on the Santa Fe Southern, but they'd relaid the track already by the time I was there.

That area is popular for movies (not Lamy in particular, but that part of New Mexico). Part of Wild Wild West was filmed in a nearby town... or should I say a nearby ex-town. There was a huge explosion scene for which the pyrotechnics were set up the day before filming by the studio's pyro-guy under the strict supervision of the fire department (of which this rancher was, at the time, a member). The pyro-guy felt that there wasn't enough explosion-potential with what was there, so during the night he quietly went back on set and added a drum or two of jet fuel without any supervision or permission. The explosion the next day caught everyone quite off-guard and became an out-of-control fire which burned down half the town. Rather than face messy legal proceedings, the studio bought off the residents by basically paying them to abandon their old town and build a new one! (There's lots of empty land down there and the large movie studios have the money and are willing to spend it when it's for what's supposed to be the guaranteed blockbuster Will Smith film of the summer, so they can just do that sort of thing I guess.)

Anyway, the Lamy station movie doesn't have any pyrotechnics and the station is fine and just as lovely as it ever was. It's still got an old Santa Fe train arrivals board inside, which the Amtrak station agent updates by hand with information on the timeliness of the day's Southwest Chiefs and Santa Fe Southerns.

 

[rtabern]

My "favorite" obsecure Amtrak stop is Winnemucca, Nevada.

The "station" is actually a bus shelter. It makes for a great picture because it says something like "Amtrak station" on the side of the bus-shelter... and yes, it's about the size of a city bus shelter... maybe fits 4 people in it.

WNN is actually a crew change spot for conductors and a smoke stop. But the platform is so small that if you're in a sleeper you often times have to walk to a coach car to get off since the sleepers would open up to unsafe rocks.

They even have a "cat house" (or so a couple of sleeping car attendants) told me across the street.

Sorry, only a 5 minute stop. Hahaha.

 

[wayman]

In the Netherlands, there is a small station at the enormous Ikea (furniture store) just outside of Haarlem. Yes, people who live in Haarlem and Amsterdam, perhaps even Leiden or Dordrecht, board the train there carrying huge Ikea flatpacks. It's quite a sight! Enough people there just don't drive ever that it's pretty much this or getting a friend to drive them if they want to buy furniture.

 

[MrFSS]

My "favorite" obsecure Amtrak stop is Winnemucca, Nevada.
The "station" is actually a bus shelter. It makes for a great picture because it says something like "Amtrak station" on the side of the bus-shelter... and yes, it's about the size of a city bus shelter... maybe fits 4 people in it.

WNN is actually a crew change spot for conductors and a smoke stop. But the platform is so small that if you're in a sleeper you often times have to walk to a coach car to get off since the sleepers would open up to unsafe rocks.

They even have a "cat house" (or so a couple of sleeping car attendants) told me across the street.

Sorry, only a 5 minute stop. Hahaha.

One of the closest stations to where I live is this one: South Portsmouth

 

[rtabern]

My "favorite" obsecure Amtrak stop is Winnemucca, Nevada.
The "station" is actually a bus shelter. It makes for a great picture because it says something like "Amtrak station" on the side of the bus-shelter... and yes, it's about the size of a city bus shelter... maybe fits 4 people in it.

WNN is actually a crew change spot for conductors and a smoke stop. But the platform is so small that if you're in a sleeper you often times have to walk to a coach car to get off since the sleepers would open up to unsafe rocks.

They even have a "cat house" (or so a couple of sleeping car attendants) told me across the street.

Sorry, only a 5 minute stop. Hahaha.

One of the closest stations to where I live is this one: South Portsmouth

Wow, that thing looks like it's about ready to collapse at any minute. Hahaha.

It sorta matches the Cardinal stop in Renselear, Indiana.

I made a stop at that AmShack on the way driving down to Beech Grove in November 2006.

 

[had8ley]

My "favorite" obsecure Amtrak stop is Winnemucca, Nevada.
The "station" is actually a bus shelter. It makes for a great picture because it says something like "Amtrak station" on the side of the bus-shelter... and yes, it's about the size of a city bus shelter... maybe fits 4 people in it.

WNN is actually a crew change spot for conductors and a smoke stop. But the platform is so small that if you're in a sleeper you often times have to walk to a coach car to get off since the sleepers would open up to unsafe rocks.

They even have a "cat house" (or so a couple of sleeping car attendants) told me across the street.

Sorry, only a 5 minute stop. Hahaha.

One of the closest stations to where I live is this one: South Portsmouth

Now if you can get an Amshack why can't Beaumont, with a much larger population I'm sure, have somewhere to at least get out of the weather?

 

[Guest]

I like Essex, MT. It's the only flagstop on the Empire Builder route. No station, no platform. You step off the train right onto the gravel.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I am not exactly sure what the definition is of an "obscure" station.

So I don't know if Atlanta's little station qualifies or not.

But one thing for sure: plenty of people wander why it is so small. Just this weekend I got into a conversation with total strangers on a MARTA bus who were wonderng about it.

And the answer is: the present facility was built entirely and completely as a small suburban pause-stop station . It was never meant to be a major station.

Atlanta did have two major downstown stations years ago., and actually several suburban stations. One was at Emory University, of all things. Today that would be near the CDC.

As it developed, the trains which still ran in Atlanta happened to use one of the downtown stations plus the suburban stop. It was a simple enough matter for the city of Atlanta , the Southern Railroad and Amtrak, whomever, to tear down the no longer needed downtown stations and re-align the tiny so-called Brookwood Station (actually called Peachtree Street Sation in the old Southern Railroad timetables) and make it the one stop.

Since Atlanta, sadly, only has two trains a day it is in fact, adequate for the purpose. Too bad there are not many more trains, to be sure. But at least we did not have to build a really obscure "amshack" 30 miles out in the middle of nowhere.

 

[George Harris]

Stockton, California has two stations about a mile from each other. One is the ex-ATSF station used by the San Joquin trains from Oakland to Bakersfield. The other is on a dead end track and is the origin point for the Stockton to San Jose commuter trains. There are two Sacramento to Bakersfield trains that go by the commuter train station but do not stop there because they are on the ex-WP main which is one track over from the station. Instead they stop at the first road crossing south of the station, something over a block from the station building. After leaving this pause point, they then go through the wye onto the ex-ATSF main, entering it about a mile east of the station.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

So what is the story with Charlottesville, VA? (I should know, as mnay times as I have been through there.)

The present timetable just shows one station. But were not at one time two stations, just a stone's throw from each other?

One for the Cardinal-route the other for Crescent-.

If only one is being used today, then I guess that would qualify the other one for obscure status.

 

[VentureForth]

Speaking of California, another oddity is that the San Clemente Pier station on the Pacific Surfliner is about a mile away from the San Clemente station for Metrolink.

Wish they would combine the two, especially since with Rail 2 Rail you can get off the Surfliner, spend an hour or so at the pier and continue on into LAX on the Metrolink. Metrolink does serve The Pier on weekends, but it's still crazy.

Back to obscurity, The Pier would be the more obscure of the two, being not much more than a slab of pavement.

 

[VentureForth]

Here'e one of my few Railpictures.net photos of Lamy. The exposed brick under the stucco is just way cool. You know, this really does fall into the obscure category. Though the main stop for Santa Fe, you have to transfer to a van, much like you do in Williams, though there IS a real station... The saloon across the street and the once grand hotel are all just a memory in the photos inside the station house.

FWIW, if you're in ABQ, this is a relatively safe day-trip from ABQ if the trains are all on time.

 

[George Harris]

So what is the story with Charlottesville, VA? (I should know, as mnay times as I have been through there.)
The present timetable just shows one station. But were not at one time two stations, just a stone's throw from each other?

One for the Cardinal-route the other for Crescent-.

If only one is being used today, then I guess that would qualify the other one for obscure status.

Way more than a stone's throw apart. More like between 3/4 mile and one mile.

The C&O station was/is Main Street Station and is right downtown. I have been there once, in 1971, but did have some wander around time. If my memory is not too rusty, it was a fairly nice brick building probably built somewhere 1920's to 1950's. This was where the Washington and Tidewater sections of the C&O trains were combined or split.

The Southern Railway station was about 3/4 mile or a little more to the west and located in the "V" between the C&O and Southern mains. It looks to be considerably older, possibly as far back as 1870's. I have been past it several times on the train in the 1970's, but never been in the building or even on the platforms. It may have originally been a Union Station until the C&O later built their own station. The station is in the northeast quadrant if you think of the C&O as east-west and the Southern as north-south. Actually, southern is more or less northeast-southwest and the angle of the crossing is about 25 degrees more or less. Since there is no longer any switching of trains here, the Cardinal no longer uses Main Street Station. It just pulls up along the south side of the Southern station building on what was the C&O main and the Crescent pulls up on the northwest side on what was the Southern main.

I had heard at one time there was a plan to build a connection so the Cardinal could get on/off the NS here instead of at Orange, as it is about the only train left on the line between Gordonsville and Orange, but do not know if it is really going to happen or not. Looking at aerial photos on Mapquest, it would seem easy to do. The main drawback is that it would leave the Cardinal stopping on the other side of the NS mains from the station.

George

 

[The Metropolitan]

I was through CVS (Charlottesville, not the Drug Store) in late September. Sure enough, the station was indeed a "Union Station," though my Twilight of the Great Trains book shows a C&O Train definitely using a different station, obviously the Main Street Station Mr. Harris refers to.

Best I can tell, a connection already exists between the C&O/NS at Charlottesville, though running the Cardinal through it would be a bit of task as it runs East to South, thus the Cardinal from Chicago would need to run into the station on the Buckingham, back into the connection onto the NS Main, and pull forward to the Crescent's Platform. I'd almost venture that such an endeavor would be worth it, as the ride on the "Buckingham Branch" to Orange is painfully slow, while the ride over the NS is much more swift. Aside from a couple of neat bridges, there is not much missed by skipping this very roundabout connection.