Niagara Falls, New York (Amtrak station)

This article is about the station on the U.S. side. For the station on the Canadian side, see Niagara Falls, Ontario railway station.
Niagara Falls

The Niagara Falls station in December 2014. An Empire Service train is waiting near the depot.
Location 2701 Willard Avenue
Niagara Falls, New York
United States
Coordinates 43°06′49″N 79°01′54″W / 43.1135°N 79.0318°W / 43.1135; -79.0318Coordinates: 43°06′49″N 79°01′54″W / 43.1135°N 79.0318°W / 43.1135; -79.0318
Owned by Owasco River Railway
Line(s) Empire Corridor
Niagara Subdivision
Platforms 2 island platforms
Tracks 3
Construction
Parking 15 long term and 15 short term dedicated parking spaces
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Station code Amtrak code:NFL
History
Opened 1959
Traffic
Passengers (2015) 31,831[1] Decrease 2.5%
Services
Preceding station   Amtrak   Following station
TerminusEmpire Service
toward Toronto
Maple Leaf

Niagara Falls is an Amtrak train station and the western end of Amtrak's Empire Corridor. It is located at Willard Avenue and 27th Street, south off Lockport Road on the northwest side of the CSX switching yard, in Niagara Falls, New York. There is an enclosed waiting area and ticket-selling location, but there is no platform, so trains are boarded in the open air.

Amtrak, in partnership with the State of New York, restored passenger rail service to Niagara Falls in October 1978. More than 500 people turned out on October 29 for the inaugural ceremonies, which included speeches by Congressman John LaFalce; William C. Hennessy, commissioner, New York Department of Transportation; and Niagara Falls Mayor Michael O'Loughlin. As the ceremony concluded, the eastbound Niagara Rainbow arrived.[2]

The station was originally built as a freight depot in 1959 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which provided an earlier iteration of a New York-Toronto Maple Leaf passenger train over an interior route via Geneva, New York and Allentown, Pennsylvania.[3][4]

Service

The station depot in 2012

The station is served by six trains daily:

Notable places nearby

The future

The new station at Niagara Falls under construction in August 2015

State and local governments plan on building a new multi-million dollar intermodal transportation center out of U.S. Customhouse to replace the current station.[5] This work is to be part of a three phase project titled the Niagara Falls International Railway Station.[5] It calls for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to share with Amtrak a complex consisting of the old customhouse and modern additions.[5]

The project consists of three phases, with a total estimated cost of $44 million.[6] Construction on the project began in August 2010, with funding only for the first two phases.[5]

In October 2010, the US Department of Transportation released $16.5 million in funds from the TIGER program for work on the final phase of the International Station project.[5][7]

References

  1. ↑ "Amtrak Fact Sheet, FY2015, State of New York" (PDF). Amtrak. November 2015. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
  2. ↑ "Service inaugural at Niagara Falls, N.Y. (1978)". Amtrak History & Archives. 29 October 1978. Retrieved 3 October 2014.
  3. ↑ Surviving New York Railroad Stations (AmericanRails.com)
  4. ↑ Existing Railroad Stations in Niagara County, New York
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "City receives final federal funding for new train station and transportation hub". Niagara Gazette. 28 October 2010. Retrieved 30 October 2010.
  6. ↑ "Niagara Falls gets $16.5M grant for Amtrak station". WCAX.com. 29 October 2010. Retrieved 30 October 2010.
  7. ↑ "USDOT doles out TIGER II grants for 75 transportation projects". Progressive Railroading. 21 October 2010. Retrieved 21 October 2010.

External links

Media related to Niagara Falls, New York (Amtrak station) at Wikimedia Commons

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