Harrisburg Transportation Center

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Harrisburg Transportation Center formerly known as Union Station, is the main railroad station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It is located in the southeastern corner of downtown Harrisburg between the intersections of Aberdeen and Market Streets and 4th and Chestnut Streets. The well-located station is the heart of the region's passenger rail and intercity bus network.

[edit] History

The current station is the third on the site and is one of many union stations in the United States. The first two Union Stations were shared by the Pennsylvania Railroad, Reading Railroad, Northern Central Railway, and the Cumberland Valley Railroad. The third (and current) station excluded the Reading, which built its own station in 1856, and the CVR maintained a small depot adjoining the much larger NCRy/PRR station. The CVR station has long since been razed. Reading discontinued passenger service into Harrisburg in the 1950s and the Reading Railroad station was razed in the early 1960s to make room for a new post office. The current station was built by the famed Pennsylvania Railroad in 1885, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is also designated as a National Engineering Landmark. The station is one of the few railroad stations in the United States that still has a train shed above the tracks. It also has a red brick exterior, unlike many of the still-used U.S. railroad stations built slightly later in the early 1900's that have white stone facing, such as 30th Street Station in Philadelphia and Union Station in Washington, DC.

[edit] Building Uses

Harrisburg Rail Station circa 1900. The current (2006) view of the building from the same location is remarkably similar.

The building, which is owned by Amtrak and managed and operated by the Harrisburg Redevelopment Authority [1], contains office space above the building's main lobby that is used by various tenants. It also contains a moderately large meeting room called the Pennsylvania Room that can be used for meetings and other large gatherings. Passenger facilities are currently limited, but the station does have a newsstand on the first floor that sells newspapers, magazines, food, and beverages. It also has various food and beverage vending machines in the intercity bus terminal portion of the building on the basement floor.

[edit] Transportation Uses

Amtrak provides service to the station via the Keystone and Pennsylvanian routes, which operate along the Keystone Corridor and Northeast Corridor. The Harrisburg Transportation Center is the western terminus of Amtrak's Keystone Service, which provides the bulk of the Amtrak service to and from Harrisburg. Primary cities served on Amtrak to and from Harrisburg include Lancaster, Philadelphia, and New York to the east and Altoona, Johnstown, and Pittsburgh to the west. Both staffed and Quik-Trak machine ticket service are available for all departures and red cap service is also available. In Federal Fiscal Year 2005, it had 339,599 Amtrak boardings plus alightings, making it the 2nd busiest Amtrak station in Pennsylvania and 27th busiest in the United States [2]. It ranks just ahead of the Lancaster train station in both categories.

There are also four intercity bus operators (Greyhound, Capitol Trailways, Fullington Trailways, and Susquehanna Trailways) that provide service to the station. They connect Harrisburg to Pennsylvania cities such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Reading, Scranton, York, State College, and Williamsport and cities in nearby states such as New York, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Binghamton, NY, and Syracuse, NY, plus many cities and towns beyond those listed via transfers.

Finally, the local public transit operator in the Harrisburg area, Capital Area Transit (CAT), has many buses that stop right outside the station or 1/2 block away on Market Street between 4th Street and Aberdeen Street (the latter of which runs directly in front of the station's main entrance).

[edit] References

• Keystone Crossings: 24 hours at Harrisburg

This United States train station-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.