Thoughts from inside a railway station

Today on one of my many short railfanning drives while my wife and son were visiting family, I visited the newly remodeled station in Albany, Oregon - which serves the Coast Starlight, two Cascades trains, and several Thruway busses. Albany is located about 25 miles south of Salem, and also serves the city of Corvallis (home of Oregon State University).

The depot, a former Southern Pacific cobblestone structure, was previously used by both Amtrak and the Portland & Western (a.k.a. Willamette & Pacific) shortline railroad, which occupies the switching yard in Albany. The Union Pacific used the former express office located to the north of the station; both railroads have moved into offices on the other side of the yard and the express office is now vacant. The station grounds have been turned into a "transportation center", which also serves local busses within Albany as well as busses that serve Corvallis and the communities of Lebanon and Sweet Home to the east along U.S. Highway 20.

Since this was my first visit since the depot had been completely refurbished I took a quick look inside the depot, and at first was amazed that the depot today looks so nice compared to its former appearances. The old covered outside waiting area which was formerly used as a baggage room has been opened back up to its original appearance, and the original baggage area is again the baggage room. A functional ticket counter awaits passengers; various historical items are located in a display case; photographs of the station and of passenger trains are located throughout the waiting area; a couple of vending machines are located behind a partition (to not be so obivious, but easily accessible) and restrooms located at one end. So far so nice. Numerous shelters are outside for those waiting for busses or taxis, a courtyard with benches and bike racks and lockers for those waiting for the train or just to mingle (or railfan?)

On my final look around, it struck me - this station is about nostalgia. So much history from the display case to the photographs. Two long, wooden benches inside to sit on. Wooden benches? Ouch!!!

On one hand we try to make Amtrak a "modern" way to travel - from the Acela Express to the Cascades (Talgo trainsets) and the California Cars. Many stations have automated arrival information signs; Amtrak's web page is a huge source of information as is "Julie"...

But on the other hand, it seems that travelling by rail is still stuck in the early 20th century, and for a society that is obsessed with Gameboy SPs and Blackberries and wireless internet access everywhere - the idea of waiting for a train, and being on a train, is an outdated relic of a bygone era, out of place in the world of today. Even the Portland Streetcar and TriMet's MAX light rail line seem to not suffer from the same mentality, as there are very few reminders of the past on either system of the old trolley lines (other than the in-bus "Travelling Back in Time" signs that have photographs of old trolley and interurban lines). MAX stations don't replicate an old trolley stop; Streetcar stops look like modern bus stops.

Airports and airlines don't tell stories of the past, when travelling by DC-3s were popular; in fact many travellers are surprised that propeller driven aircraft are still used today on regional flights. Airports are often modern, sweeping facilities; older terminal buildings extensively remodeled or razed completely and replaced. The airports I have been to don't feature photographs of old aircraft or the airports' history, nor do they have models of antique aircraft. One has to leave the airport and travel to an aircraft museum.

Certainly, I enjoy the nostalgia of old train stations, and hardly is this an endorsement for a train station to be demolished. But somehow, I wonder if keeping in the past is part of what drives the public perception that trains are "uncool" - that an old train station is nothing more than a history lesson or a trip to the museum but hardly a serious mode of transportation.

And, it might start by getting rid of the wooden benches.

I don't think there is anything incompatible with using the old train station on modern services or with modern trains. While I agree with you that wooden benches are sometime uncomfortable (it is all about the finishing and how close the slats are to each other), everything you mentioned showed a perfectly functional train station in a nice setting - it had connections to local transit, vending machines, a fairly pleasant place to wait, and a ticket counter. So what if its historical - that's apparently what the people of Albany wanted. Why shouldn't train travel be rooted to its past? Airports frequently don't reuse their buildings because they no longer meet the needs of current travelers (such as security requirements) or can't handle the passenger loads; most old train stations certainly can handle the crowds that use them these days and still could be able to meet the needs of passengers in many cases. It seems like your entire complaint boils down to "this station looked old and had old pictures." So what? It meets the needs of the people using it in a pleasant way.

To me, one of the reasons North Carolina's experience in growing traffic on the Piedmont and Carolinian is their preference for rehabbing old train stations where they exist. In places that need to construct new stations, most of the time, they do construct modern terminals a la airport style for large stations, but if you have an existing building, why not rehab it? It will probably be cheaper than building something new, and you probably will have a bigger station than you otherwise would since most older stations were built for larger amounts of passengers than are found today. I don't think people care about whether they are in an old train station waiting for a train as much as whether the station provides shelter (check at Albany), information (check - the ticket office), a little food (check - vending machines), and a place to wait (check - even if it is those benches). Would you have albany construct a new, modern train station just because it is modern and leave this one unrefurbished?

gt7348b wrote:So what if its historical - that's apparently what the people of Albany wanted. Why shouldn't train travel be rooted to its past? Airports frequently don't reuse their buildings because they no longer meet the needs of current travelers (such as security requirements) or can't handle the passenger loads; most old train stations certainly can handle the crowds that use them these days and still could be able to meet the needs of passengers in many cases. It seems like your entire complaint boils down to "this station looked old and had old pictures." So what? It meets the needs of the people using it in a pleasant way.

The last statement of the above quote - "It meets the needs of the people using it in a pleasant way." hits the nail - Albany's train station served roughly 2,000 passengers per month, according to Oregon Department of Transportation statistics, and includes all three Amtrak trains and the Thruway busses. The station boardings have also stayed nearly flat over a several year period as well...

Albany, and nearby Corvallis, Philomath, Lebanon, and Sweet Home, have a significant number of businesses - including Allegehany Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, Weyerhauser, Boise Cascade, Oregon State University, Linn-Benton Community College, the U.S. Department of Energy, and many smaller concerns - all which have a vested interest in inter-regional transportation.

Certainly, conbined with the population of both Linn and Benton Counties which is 185,400 (2003) - there is a much greater transportation need that is being served by the Amtrak station that handles 2,000 people a month, or 66 people a day (which translates to a handful of people per bus/train, almost neglible). Both on-board reports and statistics show that despite modern, sleek trains, ridership south of Portland on the Cascades trains are barely sufficient to fill one 40' motorcoach.

Where are the nearest airports with commercial air service? Portland (80 miles) and Eugene (50 miles). Portland even has light rail service right to the baggage claim door of Portland International Airport and is a short walk from Union Station. Despite the great distances, the vast majority of Linn/Benton county residents and guests (both pleasure and business) - aren't using Amtrak - they're driving on Interstate 5!

Likewise - Salem, the state capital, also had its station refurbished just a few years ago, and despite a population of over 360,000 in Marion and Polk Counties, has only 4,000 or so passengers travelling through the station as opposed to the drive up and down Interstate 5.

So - does the historical nature of train stations truly reflect what the travelling public wants or needs - or attracts the majority of the public to Amtrak as a serious mode of transportation, or is it simply to cater to historical preservation?

does the historical nature of train stations truly reflect what the travelling public wants or needs

Well, in Paris, France, you have TGVs using Gare de Lyon, which is very "historical" in appearance, to be sure. Facilities within the building would have to be modern, though, and rail service would also need to be frequent, reliable and preferably faster than 79 mph top speed (which are among the wants and needs of the traveling public).

Irish Chieftain wrote:

does the historical nature of train stations truly reflect what the travelling public wants or needs

Well, in Paris, France, you have TGVs using Gare de Lyon, which is very "historical" in appearance, to be sure. Facilities within the building would have to be modern, though, and rail service would also need to be frequent, reliable and preferably faster than 79 mph top speed (which are among the wants and needs of the traveling public).

At present Eurostar arrives in London at Waterloo International (rather rubbing the noses of the French travellers in their defeat at Waterloo). It is a high quality modern station by one of Britain's finest architects.

In two years time they will start using another station instead - St Pancras. There will be a new station with airline type lounges, customs hall and immigration, under the historic Barlow's train shed, built 150 years ago for the Midland Railway.
The still new Waterloo International will probably be used by domestic trains for commuters.

There is nothing wrong with using an old station, provided it has proper facilities. Some 30 years ago I remember taking the Southern Crescent from Birmingham Alabama where they had destroyed the magnificent Union Terminal and replaced it with a bus shelter. That wasn't progress.

St Pancras; DPM's favorite London station.

It is also closer to The City, or London's financial district than is Waterloo.

Lastly, Waterloo is on the South side of the Thames which means there is a bridge to cross to get to the train from central London.

But lest I sell Waterloo out; it was the very first London Station I ever set foot upon in this life during June 1960 (Steam powered Boat Train from Southampton).

Gilbert B Norman wrote:St Pancras; DPM's favorite London station.

It is also closer to The City, or London's financial district than is Waterloo.

Lastly, Waterloo is on the South side of the Thames which means there is a bridge to cross to get to the train from central London.

But lest I sell Waterloo out; it was the very first London Station I ever set foot upon in this life during June 1960 (Steam powered Boat Train from Southampton).

I am prejudiced because at present I can get a train from my nearest station, Bournemouth, to Waterloo and transfer to Eurostar easily (not that I do it very often).
There is a direct Underground connection to the City from Waterloo - a shuttle line with only two stations.
But the new High Speed line comes into St Pancras, and the decision has been made. There is no doubt that ridership will increase when the new line opens.
Connection to the City from St Pancras is not all that good. If you mean the financial district or Canary Wharf, there are more changes than from Waterloo on the underground. Stratford might turn out to be the best connection to the City, certainly to Canary Wharf. There are gains and losses. We shall see.

Back to the original posting, in many cases existing stations are in registered historic dietrcits and their replacement is not feasible. I am proud of what we have done here in NC, using old statiions where feasible. The "new" Greensboro station is great. In Raleigh, sadly they took a nice, but too small station, and grafted on a "modern" area in the back, and to make it worse, painted the whole think battleship gray. The most unique station is Burlington NC, where the station is in the 1868 engine shops of the old North Carolina RR. Charlotte will get a new, very modern station in the next few years. (Assuming that we still have Amtrak as a partner.)

Anyone interested is seeing pictures and histories of qulaity station rehabs (and new stations, too) I suuggest you look at www.bytrain.org the NCDOT website.

Some very interesting food for thought in this thread.

Few of our institutions are equipped to endure so long over time as the railroad; its very efficiency makes it adaptable to a wide range of uses. But at the same time, the large amounts of capital required, the necessity for heavy construction, and the sytem's limited flexibility over the short term tend to guarantee that in some form, its presence will be "frozen in time."

And few institutions are more likely to be drawn into the daily struggle we lump under the term "politics"; the fixed location of the property, usually at or near major centers of population and economic activity, guarantees it.

And that, I suspect, is why some of us find a setting near a railroad as a convenient place to reflect, and to examine our own psyche. More than one pundit has observed that railroad stations and churches have a lot in common.

It isn't all those "uncool" old train stations that turn so many Americans off to rail travel. It's all the operational factors and shortcomings that have been discussed in this forum for years: the infrequency of Amtrak's service; the limited number of towns and cities served; the often ungodly arrival and departure times; and the sheer number of hours typically required for traveling from Point A to Point B.

Unlike many contributors to this forum (who, like yours truly, developed their love for rail travel as kids), most Americans under the age of 40 will live out their entire lives without ever setting foot on a train. Born into a car-oriented, door-to-door, Type A culture, they've grown up with neither the need, the desire, the time, nor the patience to ever consider passenger rail a travel option. It simply isn't on their radar screen. And all the contemporary, glass and plastic architecture in the world isn't going to put it there.

With that said, I doubt that the thousands of people who do pass through (and admire) Grand Central Terminal, Los Angeles Union Station, and Portland Union Station each day would prefer a more "modern" environment. If they did, those stations (and many more survivors, both large and small) would have met the wrecker's ball long ago.

Granted, restoring a relatively intact old station is one thing. Converting a derelict old freight house into the "Old Tyme Railroad Depot" it never was (or, far worse, building a brand new "classic depot" from scratch) is something else entirely.

The former involves preserving the history that's already there. The latter involves fakery and manufactured nostalgia -- of the type that would make Walt Disney proud. Amtrak's station roster contains examples of both. And only a handful of new structures, like the one at Santa Ana, manage to appear genuinely "old" with any success.

http://snow.prohosting.com/usarail/santaana.htm

As for all those wooden benches: millions of Americans are long accustomed to planting their overfed posteriors on similar pieces of furniture, at their local church, every Sunday for hours on end. The chance that they may have to park their butt on one for a few minutes, in a train station, isn't likely to be a deal breaker. And I'll choose warm wood over cold plastic every time.

EastCleveland wrote:Unlike many contributors to this forum (who, like yours truly, developed their love for rail travel as kids), most Americans under the age of 40 will live out their entire lives without ever setting foot on a train. Born into a car-oriented, door-to-door, Type A culture, they've grown up with neither the need, the desire, the time, nor the patience to ever consider passenger rail a travel option. It simply isn't on their radar screen. And all the contemporary, glass and plastic architecture in the world isn't going to put it there.

With that said, I doubt that the thousands of people who do pass through (and admire) Grand Central Terminal, Los Angeles Union Station, and Portland Union Station each day would prefer a more "modern" environment.

This statement is rather peculiar to me, blending the statement that comtemporary glass and plastic architechure will not attract the young folks - but those who pass through Portland Union Station would prefer something different...

One need only look a couple blocks west of Portland Union Station to see what the city has become. What used to be acres upon acres of railroad freight yards is now Portland's "hip" urban center, the Pearl District. Full of $300,000+ condominums, 20-something kids with MBAs, Computer Science and Art degrees, and more brewpubs than Benson Bubblers - this mecca of glass, concrete and steel is what every Portland urban renewal district and development is being compared to.

Union Station, once the center of attention, has become almost out of place, a historical brick remnant of the past, surrounded by late 20th century "progress", where people cringe when comparing the Portland Streetcar with the trolley cars of the 1920s and 1930s.

The irony presents itself when the newest building to be built within 300 feet of Union Station is - a modernistic steel and cable...parking garage. All the people who shop at REI and Patagonia have to bring their Subaru Outbacks, Honda CRVs, and Toyota 4Runners.

If only a few of them would simply look across the street, and maybe walk underneath the Broadway Bridge underneath the clock tower...but they are too busy piling into those 600 square foot concrete "live/work spaces" throwing $30,000 more than the asking price just to set foot inside.

wigwagfan wrote:
This statement is rather peculiar to me, blending the statement that comtemporary glass and plastic architechure will not attract the young folks - but those who pass through Portland Union Station would prefer something different...

You're misreading me here. I said that I doubt that any visitors to those old stations, including Portland's, would prefer a more modern environment over what's currently there. And that includes even the shallow denizens of the Pearl District (or at least those who bother to venture inside).

But my main point was that most Americans will never travel by train in their lifetime. And it's not the old architecture that's keeping them away.

EastCleveland wrote:But my main point was that most Americans will never travel by train in their lifetime. And it's not the old architecture that's keeping them away.

I agree that people who use the train stations want to see older train stations torn down and replaced with airport-style structures. I'm one of them.

The question remains - the public is attracted to newer buildings. Train stations by and large are older buildings. I know Amtrak in and of itself has problems that you appropriately noted - lack of schedules, lack of reliability - that turn off passengers, but these problems are usually noted by people who have ridden an Amtrak train and experienced these things for themselves.

For people who have never set foot onboard an Amtrak train - the experience begins at the railway station, before the train arrives. Just as airports are today, railroad stations used to be promoted as signs of wealth and importance for a city. The public was invited to congregate there (and would be at an airport, except for 9-11 -- Portland even had a huge open house planned in conjunction with the opening of the Airport MAX light rail line, which was 9/10/01. Needless to say the events were quickly cancelled, which were scheduled for that weekend.)

What do airports promote? Shopping, eating, wireless internet, transportation connects...

What do trains promote? Nostalgia. (And maybe an actual Amtrak ticket agent.)

Getting back right to my original post which seems to have been forgotten in part - this sense of having to stick with nostalgia, instead of what the travelling public wants, the people who have never ridden Amtrak before and don't know what Amtrak is or has to offer (which is a significant portion of America's population).

I saw the list of North Carolina train stations - and roughly one-third of the stations were brand new. Having travelled on California's San Joaquin and Pacific Surfliner routes, a large number of the stations on those routes are brand new.

And Washington State Department of Transportation touts its Talgo trains - new, sleek, European designed. If nostalgia truly was what the travelling public wanted, why not just refurbish a bunch of old Budd cars (http://www.iltransit.com, http://www.ozarkmountainrailcar.com)? Oregon Department of Transportation owns three RDCs, and another four are in Oregon - so why spend the money on new, state-of-the-art equipment?

As my comparison to Portland's Pearl District illustrates - people are drawn to the new. There are many similarities that outline that maybe sticking to nostalgia for attracting new Amtrak riders is not exactly a success. Again - I don't agree with tearing down these old buildings, and the people who currently use them love them - but the point isn't people who use it (heck, there are people that will ride Amtrak even if the station was nothing more than a MOW access road - no station, no platform, no parking lot, no station sign!) - but people who don't use it already.

New York's Grand Central Terminal got restored and has become a popular destination, including lots of upscale restaurants. The same is true of Union Station in DC.
I think the issue with railroad stations isn't whether they are old or new, but more whether their location is desirable or not. After all, many stations, having been located 100 or more years ago, are in parts of town no longer central or desirable.

wigwagfan wrote:Airports and airlines don't tell stories of the past, when travelling by DC-3s were popular; in fact many travellers are surprised that propeller driven aircraft are still used today on regional flights. Airports are often modern, sweeping facilities; older terminal buildings extensively remodeled or razed completely and replaced. The airports I have been to don't feature photographs of old aircraft or the airports' history, nor do they have models of antique aircraft. One has to leave the airport and travel to an aircraft museum.

This may be true of some giant international airports, but even there I know I've seen photos, etc. of DC3s and their ilk. Of the 10 or so smaller airports I've visited in the last couple of years, each served by a regional carrier or a major airlines regional service, most had a number of old photos, etc.

For example, this past Saturday we flew from New Jersey to New Bedford, MA for lunch at the restaurant in the terminal and then back to NJ. That terminal is served by at least Cape Air schduled regional service with connections to Continental. There was also another line's aircraft parked there, whose name escapes me at the moment, but Cape Air is the major tennant. In the Cape Air waiting area there were at least 15 or so photos taken I would estimate from the 1950's to a couple of newer ones. Old aircraft, etc. I spent about 10 minutes or so looking at the photos. They were quite interesting.