Amtrak wins takeover of Washington Union Station

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west point

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Bostontoallpoints said:
Union Station after 7pm is like the movie "Night of the Living Dead". The zombies freely roam about the station.
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The hours before my first Amtrak ride ever were interesting. It was about 5 weeks after 9/11/01 and my cousin dropped me off at a Metro station in Virginia since he had a gun with him. I don't remember exactly when I got to Union Station but i do remember walking down to the open air Mc Donalds for something to eat before they closed. I watched several mice eating french fries that had been dropped on the floor. I curled up in a chair with my luggage to wait for my 3AM train to New York Penn.
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I've been in Union station a couple of times since then but never after 7PM. I even remember seeing George Will in the station once.
 
jis said:
The takeover closes this Monday.

The following article may require subscription:

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2024/07/26/amtrak-union-station-eminent-domain.html
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Great news. A crummy company had control of the place.

Bostontoallpoints said:
Union Station after 7pm is like the movie "Night of the Living Dead". The zombies freely roam about the station.
Click to expand...
Not discounting anyone else's experience, but as an occasional user of WAS since the late 1970s, when you had to walk around the remnants of the Bicentennial pit, I've never been approached aggressively there. Fort Lauderdale, 2023, that was another matter. (For those that don't know, D.C. was known for its large homeless population "sleeping on grates" in the late 1970s, compared to surrounding jurisdictions, due to a difference in commitment laws. Some of it was myth but plenty was reality.)

As far as 7pm goes, I don't know about early evening hours. I drove to WAS and parked in the garage November 2021, at 3:30am. I went through the station and took a walk towards the Library of Congress. When I came back an hour later, they were checking tickets at the main entrance. No zombies present inside.

The story of WAS may be filtered for many by the fact that it was a surprisingly popular mall and movie theater twenty years ago, after decades of lull. Like many such places, it no longer is, so that gets wrapped up into an exaggerated story of decline. The main thing it is in normal hours is busy. Train stations should be safe environments., agreed.
 
Hope this is the end but still a little skeptical. Was reading the WAS station plans for construction. What became a surprise was that sub basement work is needed for the supports of the tracks above. The reading seemed to say that the supports cannot support heavier weights.
Another item was that the rehab of the first street tunnel bores will include extending the OCS (CAT) into the tunnel with possibility of going all the way to the other end. Don't get your hopes up completion is year 2040.

https://www.railwayage.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Amtrak-2021-Corridor-Vision-May27_2021.pdf
 
I found another article that I think has enough detail on Amtrak's plans for short-term improvements to DC Union Station. I think Amtrak is right to believe that a lot of that vanished retail will never come back. They're not taking all the vacant retail space, but I think the space they are taking is definitely needed to help passenger flow. That's its best use now and will be going forward.
 
JamesWhitcombRiley said:
The story of WAS may be filtered for many by the fact that it was a surprisingly popular mall and movie theater twenty years ago, after decades of lull. Like many such places, it no longer is, so that gets wrapped up into an exaggerated story of decline. The main thing it is in normal hours is busy. Train stations should be safe environments., agreed.
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Ah, a mall. I'd always wondered what the upper levels of the station had been.

The building looked to me like the original was the facade that we see from Columbus Circle. And behind was a 2 level add-on (above ground). And there's those restaurants on the 2nd floor that overlook the original main hall.

Thanks for sharing the history about the mall and theater.

I walked around the older sections during a layover and read the sculpted inscriptions. It's some interesting text to read ...

1722680661438.png
 

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