Union Station (Utica, New York)
The Boehlert Transportation Center at Union Station is a train station served by Amtrak and the Adirondack Scenic Railroad in Utica, New York. It is owned by Oneida County, and named for retired U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford.
The station was built in the Italianate style and includes a rusticated granite first story with buff brick above. Symmetrically rectangular in plan, there are thirteen bays across the façade and fifteen on the side elevations. A brick parapet crowns the building; over the main entrance is a large clock flanked by eagle sculptures. The Utica station was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.[3]
Inside is a restaurant and a barber shop, one of the few barber shops in a train station today.[citation needed] The 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2) waiting room's 47-foot-high (14 m) vaulted ceiling is supported by 34 marble columns. The station's blueprints called for the importing of columns that originally adorned Grand Central Station in New York City. Eight large benches are heated with steam pipes and vents.
History
The station was built between 1912 and May 1914, replacing an older structure dating from 1869. The building was designed by New York architects Stem and Fellheimer.[4] Construction involved the rerouting of the Mohawk River. The Mohawk River was relocated due to the risk of flooding and the proximity of the Mohawk River to the railroad had become a problem for the expanding city.[5] Built as a New York Central Railroad station, in 1915 it became tenated by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and the New York, Ontario and Western Railway as well, those two companies abandoning their structures.
At one time, the waiting room also contained three ticket windows, an information office, 15 pay telephones, a Western Union office, two shoeshine stands, a bar and grill. The Western Union Office is no longer there.[citation needed]
The station's restoration began in 1978, but refurbishing/restoration work continues to this day.
Layout
As originally built, the station featured six island platforms with one alighting platform directly accessible from the station building, serving 12 tracks for New York Central Railroad trains; these were numbered 5 through 16 from south to north. (Tracks 1 and 2 were, respectively, the eastbound and westbound mainline for non-stop trains between Tracks 10 and 11, while Tracks 3 and 4 ran through the yards north of the station proper.) One additional dead-end island platform on the west side of the station building served the New York, Ontario and Western Railway (southern track) and Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (northern track), for a grand total of eight platforms serving 14 tracks. All platforms were linked by an underground passageway.
Postwar reductions in passenger traffic led to service cuts and the eventual bankruptcy of all three railroads, leaving only the mainline Water Level Route (the modern Amtrak Empire Corridor) with regular passenger service by the 1970s. Over time, all but the two centermost platforms were demolished, and the space originally occupied by the first seven station-side tracks was converted into passenger parking.
As it currently exists, Union Station has one side platform (originally the third island platform), accessible directly from the parking lot, serving eastbound Amtrak trains on Track 2 (the former Track 10); and one island platform (slightly widened from its original dimensions) serving westbound Amtrak trains on Track 1 (former Track 11) and Adirondack Scenic Railroad trains on the northern side (former Track 13). These are linked by an aerial walkway, constructed during station renovations at the turn of the 21st century.
Service
Amtrak
The station sees multiple daily departures of the following trains:
A total of eight Amtrak trains use the station daily.
Adirondack Scenic Railroad
The Adirondack Scenic Railroad operates a heritage railway from Utica to Holland Patent, Remsen, and Old Forge on a seasonal basis.[6]
Bus
Bus companies serving the station, one of the first intermodal facilities in the state[citation needed], include the following:
- CENTRO of Oneida
- Greyhound Lines
- Birnie Bus Services
- Utica-Rome Bus Company
- Adirondack Trailways
- Coach USA/Chenango Valley Bus Company
References
- ^ "Amtrak Fact Sheet, FY2015, State of New York" (PDF). Amtrak. November 2015. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "Utica Station". Amtrak's Great American Stations. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
- ^ Potter, Janet Greenstein (1996). Great American Railroad Stations. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 184. ISBN 978-0471143895.
- ^ Olney, Stephen S. (1987). Union Station, Utica, New York.
- ^ Utica's Union Station (Adirondack Scenic Railroad) Archived February 6, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
External links
Media related to Union Station—Utica, New York at Wikimedia Commons
- Boehlert Transportation Center at Union Station
- Utica, NY – Amtrak
- Utica, NY – Station history at Great American Stations (Amtrak)
- Utica, NY (UCA) (Amtrak's Great American Stations)
- Utica Union Station (USA Rail Guide -- Train Web)
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- National Register of Historic Places in Oneida County, New York