Danville (Amtrak station)

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Danville

Station statistics

Address

677 Craighead St.
Danville, VA

Lines

Crescent

Other information

Opened

1899

Rebuilt

1995

Code

DAN

Traffic

Passengers (2007)

4,662 ▲ 14.7%

Services

Preceding station		Amtrak		Following station
Greensboro toward New Orleans		Crescent		Lynchburg toward New York

The Danville, Virginia Amtrak station was built in 1899 from plans drawn by the noted Southern Railway (US) architect, Frank Milburn. In 1915, a track expansion required that the track be moved 133 feet to the northeast. The station was jacked up on rollers, and crews used mules and stump pullers to roll the building. It is said that the move was done so skillfully that not a single brick was cracked.

In 1922, the building was almost destroyed by fire during a raging snowstorm. Southern Railway rebuilt the building to its original specifications, minus the spire that had formerly graced its roofline.

With the demise of public rail transit, the building fell into disuse, and for years, Amtrak passengers had to walk through an underground tunnel and wait on a platform between the tracks. In 1995, a group of local civic leaders sought federal ISTEA funding and local contributions to renovate the station. It is now part of the campus of the Danville Science Center, the first satellite facility of the Science Museum of Virginia.