| Centralia | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Centralia, WA Amtrak Station |
||||||||||||||||
| Station statistics | ||||||||||||||||
| Address | 210 Railroad Avenue Centralia, WA 98531 |
|||||||||||||||
| Lines | ||||||||||||||||
| Connections | Twin Transit | |||||||||||||||
| Platforms | 1 side platform | |||||||||||||||
| Tracks | 1 | |||||||||||||||
| Parking | Free | |||||||||||||||
| Other information | ||||||||||||||||
| Opened | 1912[1] | |||||||||||||||
| Rebuilt | 2002[2] | |||||||||||||||
| Code | CTL | |||||||||||||||
| Traffic | ||||||||||||||||
| Passengers (2010) | 23,948[3] 0.9% | |||||||||||||||
| Services | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
The Centralia Union Depot is an Amtrak station in Centralia, Washington. It is served by the Coast Starlight and Amtrak Cascades passenger trains.
Of the eighteen Washington stations served by Amtrak, Centralia was the twelfth busiest in FY10, boarding or detraining an average of about 65 passengers daily.[3]
The track and platforms are owned by BNSF Railway. Local transit connections are provided by Twin Transit.
The station was constructed by the Northern Pacific Railway (NP) and opened in 1912. It is the third station to have been constructed in Centralia since rail service began in 1880.[5]
The large brick structure was built to accommodate a 400% population boom in the area from 1900-1914. Only 2 years after its opening, Centralia Union Depot was being served by 44 passenger trains and 17 freight trains daily. The station faced 14 hotels along Tower Avenue, as well as 5 theaters and 8 banks in the downtown core.[6]
The demise of NP with its merger into Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) in 1970 and the creation of Amtrak to provide passenger rail service in 1971, coupled with increased automobile traffic on Interstate 5 saw the Centralia Union Depot deteriorate, much as the city's downtown core was experiencing economic decline. Local civic leaders recognized the problem during the mid-1980s and began a two-decade project that would see the structure acquired by the city and restored as part of a larger downtown revitalization project.[6]
The 1996 merger of BN to form the BNSF Railway (BNSF) spurred both the city and the state Department of Transportation (Rail Branch) to negotiate with BNSF to acquire the depot.[6] Following its purchase, the city began the design process for the historic restoration which took place as follows:
The restoration project was completed in April 2002 and celebrated in the city's "Railroad Days" festival.[6]
The depot is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[7]
|
||||||||||||||||||||