Essex (Amtrak station)

Essex

The Empire Builder and the Izaak Walton Inn.
Station statistics
Address 290 Izaak Walton Inn Rd.
Essex, MT 59916
Lines
  Empire Builder
Platforms 1 side platform
Tracks 2
Parking None
Baggage check No
Other information
Code ESM
Owned by BNSF Railway/Izaak Walton Inn
Traffic
Passengers (2011) 3,568[1]  25%
Services
Preceding station   Amtrak   Following station
toward Seattle or Portland
 Empire Builder
toward Chicago

Essex, Montana is the only flag stop on the Amtrak Empire Builder route. Of the twelve Montana cities served by Amtrak, Essex was the ninth busiest in FY10, boarding or detraining an average of 13 passengers daily. The community of Essex, MT itself has a year-round population of less than 50, so nearly all passengers boarding or detraining in Essex are destined for the nearby historic Izaak Walton Inn in Essex, Montana.[2][3] The Empire Builder serves eleven other communities in the state. Of the twelve Montana stations serves by Amtrak, Essex was the ninth-busiest in FY2010, boarding or detraining an average of 13 passengers daily.[4]

There currently is no station building at Essex. (The only remaining piece of the original station is the sign with the name "Essex" on it, currently afixed to a small shed adjacent to the platform.) The Empire Builder stops at a short platform located just around a curve from the Inn, with that location chosen so that departing/arriving passengers do not need to walk across the tracks in the little rail yard to reach the Inn. In late 2010, Amtrak built an attractive concrete platform with embedded heating coils (for automatic snow clearance) to replace the old asphalt platform, and also added additional lighting and fencing.

A van from the Inn meets both the morning eastbound and the evening westbound Empire Builders to convey departing/arriving passengers between the platform and the Inn. The Izaak Walton Inn is open year round.

Notes and references

  1. ^ "Essex, MT (ESM)". Great American Stations. http://www.greatamericanstations.com/Stations/ESM. Retrieved 18 November 2011. 
  2. ^ "Amtrak - Great American Stations". Amtrak. http://www.greatamericanstations.com/Stations/ESM/Station_view. Retrieved 2009-04-23. 
  3. ^ Grau, Kara; Bruns-Dubois, Melissa; Nickerson, Norma P. (December 2006). "The Economic Review of the Travel Industry in Montana" (PDF). Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana. http://www.itrr.umt.edu/ecorev/Economicreview2006.pdf. Retrieved 2007-02-01. 
  4. ^ "Amtrak Fact Sheet, FY2010, State of Montana" (PDF). Amtrak. November 2010. http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/MONTANA10.pdf. Retrieved 2011-01-06. 

External links