Stations that aren't in the downtown

[fairviewroad]

Gosh, from the way Amtrak riders talk, I'd have thought every NEC station was downtown. How many fly vs train debates

include some railfan uttering the phrase "downtown-to-downtown" when making a comparison of the time it takes on the

train versus a commercial flight.

"What's that? Amtrak takes 4 hours from Boston to New York? But that's downtown-to-downtown!"

 

[niemi24s]

Anyone needing inspiration after digesting this thread can rejuvinate themselves with this:


If you crank up the volume you might be able to numbnitize your sensory strunodes! :blink:

 

[jshell]

Nor are Union Stations in Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis, Kansas City or Denver.

I'd say Union Station qualifies as downtown. Heart of the Loop? No. But it's about three blocks from the Sears Tower. Same with Denver; it's right in the city. And New Orleans station is on the edge of downtown.

For me, all that counts is: can I walk around and be entertained between trains? Chicago easily fits that definition. On my two transfers from the Capitol Limited to the westbound California Zephyr, there was more than enough time to walk to millennium park and the chrome bean/sky bridge/whatever it's called and grab a quick lunch somewhere in between. Could have easily enjoyed the museum had I wanted to spend the money. Did a trip to the sears/willis tower my first time through because: hey, why not?

I feel pretty much the same way about Philadelphia: pleasant walk across the bridges and around. My last time through there I had a tighter window between trains so I grabbed lunch in the station. I used to have a friend that lived right across the river from Philly's train station so we could easily walk there. Good enough for me. (I miss those days, taking a midnight train out of NYC to her place for a few hours before I'd get back on a train to Fredericksburg VA where my office was basically across the street from the train station.)

Many similar examples where things might not be in the heart of some poorly defined 'commercial district' (which aren't always the most interesting places anyways) but near enough to be interesting. My memory of Baltimore's station is like this, but my Baltimore memories often get drunk and fuzzy.

Which again all stand as a stark contrast to RVR "Staples Mill Road" station outside of Richmond - some industrial suburban nowhere. Horrible place to transfer trains.

 

[jebr]

Gosh, from the way Amtrak riders talk, I'd have thought every NEC station was downtown. How many fly vs train debates

include some railfan uttering the phrase "downtown-to-downtown" when making a comparison of the time it takes on the

train versus a commercial flight.

"What's that? Amtrak takes 4 hours from Boston to New York? But that's downtown-to-downtown!"

I think often Amtrak uses "city center to city center," which could be seen as more vague, I suppose.

However, I think the general point still holds. Most Amtrak stations are within walking distance of many main attractions and centers of activity in the location. And almost all are a lot closer than even the most convenient commercial airport. (An exception that immediately comes to mind is Minneapolis...if you want to get to the core of the Minneapolis business district, MSP + the Blue Line trip would be just as fast, if not a touch faster, than SPUD + the Green Line trip. St. Paul is still much better to take the train.)

 

[DryCreek]

Just saw this. Ok, the plan is to add a station at roughly Bland and I-64 (more or less across from the airport). The initial funding source was an earmark for an interchange there, but it's now state-funded (since there's a steady flow of cash coming from IPROC...I'll explain more upon request).

At the moment we only have two trains per day, though the long(er) term plan is to bump that up to at least three (we were supposed to get the train Norfolk did, but NS decided to be super-cooperative and the state jumped at the opportunity to add Norfolk to the system). The main issue at the moment is that Norfolk and Newport News are fighting over trains.

Well, Bland Blvd is smack-dab in the middle of the newest expansion area. I thought some folks arguments very interesting about how the current station was "miles from downtown". For those that were born and grew up there, like my wife, downtown was the area down near where Jefferson Ave. and Roanoak crossed and down to about 34th. There were large department stores downtown, as well as restaurants and small office buildings (lawyers, insurance, banks) - wayyyyyy back then. That area they all like to refer to as "downtown" now was always referred to as either Denbigh (north) or Oyster Point (south). We lived "up in Denbigh" after moving from the "Hidenwood" area.

My mother in law still has pictures from when downtown NN was a decent place to go. I specifically remember her mentioning a large (maybe three story?) department store they would always visit.

It's funny how perspective is driven by where the name of a city is printed on Google Maps.....

ETA - "but it's now state-funded (since there's a steady flow of cash coming from IPROC...I'll explain more upon request)."

Please do elaborate. I think that it was a good thing to get service from a more southerly approach into Norfolk. Didn't that open up a few more stops that previously didn't have rail service?

 

[chakk]

Last time I transferred between the California Zephyr and the Capitol Limited, I walked between Chicago Union Station and Grand Central Station. Of course, that was in the 1960s.

 

[Anderson]

Just saw this. Ok, the plan is to add a station at roughly Bland and I-64 (more or less across from the airport). The initial funding source was an earmark for an interchange there, but it's now state-funded (since there's a steady flow of cash coming from IPROC...I'll explain more upon request).

At the moment we only have two trains per day, though the long(er) term plan is to bump that up to at least three (we were supposed to get the train Norfolk did, but NS decided to be super-cooperative and the state jumped at the opportunity to add Norfolk to the system). The main issue at the moment is that Norfolk and Newport News are fighting over trains.

Well, Bland Blvd is smack-dab in the middle of the newest expansion area. I thought some folks arguments very interesting about how the current station was "miles from downtown". For those that were born and grew up there, like my wife, downtown was the area down near where Jefferson Ave. and Roanoak crossed and down to about 34th. There were large department stores downtown, as well as restaurants and small office buildings (lawyers, insurance, banks) - wayyyyyy back then. That area they all like to refer to as "downtown" now was always referred to as either Denbigh (north) or Oyster Point (south). We lived "up in Denbigh" after moving from the "Hidenwood" area.

My mother in law still has pictures from when downtown NN was a decent place to go. I specifically remember her mentioning a large (maybe three story?) department store they would always visit.

It's funny how perspective is driven by where the name of a city is printed on Google Maps.....

ETA - "but it's now state-funded (since there's a steady flow of cash coming from IPROC...I'll explain more upon request)."

Please do elaborate. I think that it was a good thing to get service from a more southerly approach into Norfolk. Didn't that open up a few more stops that previously didn't have rail service?

My mother and grandmother spoke of that department store, though I forget the name of it. I'm currently in Hilton (technically a neighborhood or two over, but it's close enough) and my grandfather was the first business owner to move into Oyster Point Industrial Park.

Norfolk's current line only added one (Norfolk), though it also added Regional service into Petersburg. Suffolk will likely be added once they get service on its final routing, since nobody wants to build a station that will go out of service in five years.

I agree that adding service into Norfolk was a good idea. The main issue is that there aren't a good mix of Regionals available to give both Norfolk and Newport News reasonably spaced-out service (there are four morning Regionals...three would be early-morning and one mid-morning...and one in the evening), and the markets are reasonably similar (NPN's catchment area includes NFK and vice-versa). One thing I've talked with some folks about is running some Ambus connectors from NPN/WBG up to RVR (eventually moving to RVM once more trains move in there, and possibly serving RVM as-is if you can allow it to operate as a commuter service) for trains that don't run down the Peninsula.

 

[neroden]

FWIW, the Hudson & Manhattan (now PATH) managed to have a station on the edge of downtown Manhattan. The NYC actually had a horsecar line running all the way to downtown, but couldn't manage to put a grade-separated railroad and a big station into this built-up area... so they had to put Grand Central far outside of downtown, in what's now known as "midtown".

Of course, over the decades New York's business center expanded into Midtown, which is a bigger business center than downtown now.

It turns out it's hard to convince people to let you run a surface rail line through an already-existing downtown, and this is why in London and Paris and Moscow the railway terminals skirt around the downtowns. Eventually they built tunnels under them.

 

[PerRock]

Locally to me, neither TOL or DET are downtown.

My local station ARB technically isn't downtown either. The ARB station is arguably* in the "Historic Kerrytown District" but to most visitors, you would probably think of it as downtown. But then ARB isn't really that big of a city.

Other stations I can think of that aren't downtown: St. Louis (just outside, like 1 block), MSP isn't downtown Minneapolis... If you do a Google maps search for "Downtown City, ST" in most cases it'll highlight the downtown area of said city; then just look for the blue station icon & see if it's within the highlighted area.

peter

*I say arguably because the station is about a block outside the district, in a non-district area, on the opposite side of Kerrytown from Downtown. So even still it isn't downtown.

 

[niemi24s]

If you do a Google maps search for "Downtown City, ST" in most cases it'll highlight the downtown area of said city; then just look for the blue station icon & see if it's within the highlighted area.

Another nifty tool - thanks for pointing it out to us. Using it reveals that Penn Station in Baltimore MD is about 600 feet north of the downtown area. And oddly enough, it shows downtown Newport News VA as being almost entirely the area occupied by Newport News Shipbuilding with the station about 1 mile NW of its border.

Uh oh! :huh:

 

[Ryan]

Yeah, I'm not sure I would consider that you be an authoritative resource.

 

[PerRock]

Yeah, I'm not sure I would consider that you be an authoritative resource.

Heck I don't even consider myself to be an authoritative resource...

peter

 

[niemi24s]

MSP isn't downtown Minneapolis...

It is, however (in accordance with Google Maps), firmly located in downtown St. Paul MN, its actual location. The previous station (also coded MSP) was also in St. Paul, but not within the Google Maps outline of Downtown St Paul.

 

[battalion51]

I haven't seen a mention of Miami. While it's a fairly spread out city I think most of us would agree that Hialeah is not an ideal location. They're supposed to move in a few years down to the airport. While not downtown, the airport will be a better entrance because of its bus/Metrorail/car rental connections within the facility.

 

[jis]

The FEC AAF station I guess will be closer to what might go for downtown in Miami. I think Tr-Rail will make it to that station from the Tri-Rail line even before any Tri-Rail service gets onto FEC coastal line. I doubt that Amtrak will ever make it there.

 

[niemi24s]

The Google Maps plot of "Downtown Reno NV" defies description: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Reno,+NV/@39.5658053,-119.8444041,11z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x809940ae9292a09d:0x40c5c5ce7438f787 But I suspect it's nothing more than the outline of the city limits because it just says "Reno" and not "Downtown". Same thing for Chicago. So maybe if somebody hasn't programmed in a city's downtown area it simply reverts to displaying the border of the whole city. But for New York City it just says "Lower Manhattan" with an outline of everything on Manhattan South of 14th Avenue. Then there's also the variation where instead of the outline of an area, Google Maps just displays a pushpin (point) labeled "Downtown" - such as for Milwaukee.

My conclusion is that if it doesn't have the label "Downtown" it's something else. And if it does say "Downtown" - it might be. Maybe. Sorta. Kinda. Er, whatever.

 

[Truth]

Sorry, some of these responses really annoy me. Those of you who claim that Baltimore's station is in the downtown, that is completely wrong, and there is no way to argue it. I don't care if you claim to be "local." Being in suburbs does not mean local. This is the typical suburban understanding of things, that if you're anywhere within the city limits that you are "downtown". Wakeup call for those of you who are in suburbs: Downtown is not the same thing as "in the city limits." In real cities we have things called neighborhoods. And we know the names of these neighborhoods. And these neighborhoods have different functions and personalities and atmospheres. The Baltimore Station is located in Mt. Vernon. See, it has its own name. It's not called downtown. In Baltimore Mt. Vernon is the arts and culture neighborhood of the city. IT IS NOT DOWNTOWN. Downtown is a place where the main business and shopping take place. And where they have a bunch of tall buildings. And the City Hall. ETC.

Unless you live INSIDE city and are FROM that city you have no right to talk like you do.

SUBURBS ARE NOT THE CITY. YOU GAVE UP ON THE CITY, SO DON'T TRY TO TAKE CREDIT FOR WHAT ISN'T YOURS.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Why not tell us how you really feel " Guest_Truth"?!!!

Cue Petula Clark singing " Downtown!"as niemi24s posted!

 

[Eric S]

Guest, calm down.

Downtown is a nebulous notion. A number of the stations mentioned probably aren't located in what would strictly considered to be downtown, but are quite clearly in the central city area broadly defined. To argue over whether BAL, CHI, KCY, NOL, etc are located downtown is, to me, kind of foolish, given that there is no official definition of downtown that can be applied from city to city. And there is a world of difference between the locations of BAL and SAV, relative to their city's downtown areas.

And, although many suburbanites often have a rather broad definition of downtown, sometimes referring to anything in the city as downtown, that most certainly does not mean that one MUST live within the city limits to understand the layout and neighborhoods of the city.

 

[RampWidget]

Baltimore Penn Station is not in downtown Baltimore. Why is that? Was there ever a station downtown?

What are some of the other big city stations that aren't located downtown and why? I'm thinking of ATL for one.

I think of Charleston, Newport News, and Jacksonville.Not Big Cities, but mid-size.

Jacksonville has no city center.

<< edit >> but the Jacksonville local bus transit is --adequate-- Amtrak to airport to Navy base -- slow, infrequent, but serviceable. Did Jacksonville ever have a "city center station" dunno >>

Jacksonville indeed has a city center, with Downtown on the north bank of the St. Johns River bordered by EverBank Field (the enlarged former Gator Bowl) on the east and I-95 on the west.The former downtown railroad station, Jacksonville Terminal, is at the foot of Water Street at Park Street. It was at one time the busiest passenger station south of Washington, DC in terms of through and connecting passengers plus the local O&D traffic. It was co-owned by ACL, SAL, Southern, Georgia Southern & Florida, and FEC.

Jacksonville Terminal requires through trains to back in then head out unless they are headed to or from Miami via the Florida East Coast Ry. This made the station an expensive time-eater after the coming of Amtrak with the cutbacks in service, and the Clifford Lane station in use today was built adjacent to the SCL main line for the convenience of the SCL and Amtrak (and to keep slow or stopped passenger trains from blocking road crossings.)

Today, Jacksonville Terminal has been repurposed as a convention center, with the head building restored and intact. The train shed area is now exhibit & convention space. Trains still pass by, however; FEC, NS, and CSX all make transfer runs between FEC Bowden Yard south of the river and the NS & CSX yards north of the river.

There are plans afoot to relocate the bus terminal to an area adjacent to the Terminal, and discussions are ongoing about the feasibility of returning Amtrak to the Terminal in the future.

edit: typo

 

[MARC Rider]

Sorry, some of these responses really annoy me. Those of you who claim that Baltimore's station is in the downtown, that is completely wrong, and there is no way to argue it. I don't care if you claim to be "local." Being in suburbs does not mean local. This is the typical suburban understanding of things, that if you're anywhere within the city limits that you are "downtown". Wakeup call for those of you who are in suburbs: Downtown is not the same thing as "in the city limits." In real cities we have things called neighborhoods. And we know the names of these neighborhoods. And these neighborhoods have different functions and personalities and atmospheres. The Baltimore Station is located in Mt. Vernon. See, it has its own name. It's not called downtown. In Baltimore Mt. Vernon is the arts and culture neighborhood of the city. IT IS NOT DOWNTOWN. Downtown is a place where the main business and shopping take place. And where they have a bunch of tall buildings. And the City Hall. ETC.

Unless you live INSIDE city and are FROM that city you have no right to talk like you do.

SUBURBS ARE NOT THE CITY. YOU GAVE UP ON THE CITY, SO DON'T TRY TO TAKE CREDIT FOR WHAT ISN'T YOURS.

Check out this:

http://godowntownbaltimore.com/Default.aspx

"Downtown Baltimore" includes neighborhoods like Mt. Vernon, and, surprisingly to me, areas such as Old Town (which includes the state Pen), the Johns Hopkins Medical Center, which I always thought of as being in "East Baltimore," and Canton, which is as far from the Inner Harbor as Penn Station. Locust Point and South Baltimore are also considered "Downtown." When my wife and I say "let's go downtown," we're as likely to mean Fell's Point or Mt. Vernon as we are to Charles Center,

By the way, I live in Baltimore City, and have done so for the last 35+ years. And even natives have flexible definitions of areas -- I know somebody (who was born and raised in Baltimore) who recently told me that Towson was on the "east side." Go figure.