Main Street Station (Richmond)
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| Richmond Main Street Station | |||||||||||
 Richmond Main Street Station in 2008 |
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| Address | 1500 E. Main Street Richmond, VA |
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| Baggage check | No | ||||||||||
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| Accessible |  |
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| Code | RVM | ||||||||||
| Owned by | City of Richmond | ||||||||||
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| Passengers (2007) | 12,757 ▲ 16% | ||||||||||
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Richmond Main Street Station is an historic railroad station and office building in Richmond, Virginia. Originally built in 1901, it is currently served by Amtrak, and is planned in the future to become the northern terminus of the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor as well as an intermodal station with Richmond's city transit bus services, currently performed by GRTC. With uppermost sections located adjacent to the James River Bridge of Interstate 95, it is locally referred to by some passersby as The Clock Tower.
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[edit] History
Richmond's Main Street Station in the downtown area was built in 1901 by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL) and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O). The Seaboard was newly built into Richmond, and the C&O had consolidated the former Virginia Central Railroad and the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad, which had previously maintained separate stations.
The ornate Main Street Station was designed by the Philadelphia firm of Wilson, Harris, and Richards in the French Renaissance style. In the 1950s, Seaboard shifted its Richmond passenger service to Broad Street Station. C&O maintained offices in the upper floors, and its passenger service continued at Main Street Station until Amtrak took over service in 1971. Shortly later, Amtrak moved to a much smaller suburban station in Henrico County.
After being decommissioned in 1971, Main Street Station saw no passenger service until 2004, when it was renovated and returned to rail service. It is presently a stop on Amtrak's Northeast Regional service between Boston and Newport News, Virginia. In 2006, the top three floors of the main building were renovated and occupied by Richmond-based advertising firm RightMinds.
[edit] Current Routes
[edit] Future Services
Local officials hope to increase the number of trains by extending some service which currently terminates at the suburban Henrico County station. More importantly, Main Street Station is located on the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor (SEHSR), a passenger rail transportation project in the United States to connect with the existing high speed rail corridor from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, DC known as the Northeast Corridor (served by Amtrak's Acela Express and Northeast Regional services and many commuter railroads) and extend similar high speed passenger rail services south through Richmond and Petersburg in Virginia through Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina. Since first established in 1992, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has since extended the corridor to Atlanta and Macon, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama.
Most funding for the SEHSR to date has been by the USDOT and the states of North Carolina and Virginia. Both states already fund some non-high speed rail service operated for them by Amtrak, and own locomotives and passenger cars. The first large section of the SEHSR, from Washington, DC through Virginia and North Carolina south to Charlotte, is due to be in service by 2013 based on funding availability. [1]
Main Street Station is also planned to become an intermodal station with Richmond's city transit bus services, currently performed by GRTC, a public service company owned jointly by the City of Richmond and Chesterfield County.
[edit] Main Street Station in Fiction
In 2004 Richmond's Main Street Station served as a backdrop for an episode of the TV series Alias, posing as the British Embassy in Vienna.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor
- Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation
- Richmond Main Street Amtrak Station (USA Rail Guide - TrainWeb)
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