Richmond Main Street Station

Richmond Main Street Station, officially the Main Street Station and Trainshed, is a historic railroad station and office building in Richmond, Virginia. It was built in 1901, and is served by Amtrak. It is also an intermodal station with Richmond's city transit bus services, which are performed by Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC). It is colloquially known by people from the city as The Clock Tower. It is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Main Street Station serves as a secondary train station for Richmond providing limited Amtrak service directly to downtown Richmond. Several Amtrak trains serving the Richmond metropolitan area only stop at the area's primary rail station, Staples Mill Road which is located five miles to the north in Henrico County.

For the other Amtrak station in Richmond, see Richmond Staples Mill Road station.
Richmond – Main Street
Richmond Main Street Station in 2008
Location1500 East Main Street
Richmond, Virginia
Coordinates37°32′05″N 77°25′45″W
Owned byCity of Richmond
Platforms1 side platform
Tracks2
Connections
Megabus: M21, M22, M23, M24, M27
RamRide: Sanger Hill Express
GRTC: Pulse, 14, 95x
Construction
Disabled accessYes
ArchitectWilson, Harris, & Richards
Architectural styleBeaux Arts
Other information
Station codeRVM
History
Opened1901
Passengers
201848,384[1]  4.38%
Services
Preceding station Amtrak Following station
Williamsburg
toward Newport News
 Northeast Regional Richmond Staples Mill Road
toward Boston South or Springfield
Preceding station GRTC Pulse Following station
VCU Medical Center
toward Willow Lawn
 Broad & Main Street Line Shockoe Bottom
toward Rocketts Landing
Former and Proposed services
Preceding station Seaboard Air Line Railroad Following station
Chester
toward Tampa or Miami
 Main Line Terminus
Preceding station Amtrak Following station
Proposed Services
Petersburg
toward Norfolk
 Northeast Regional Richmond Staples Mill Road
toward Boston South or Springfield
Petersburg
toward Miami
 Silver Star Richmond Staples Mill Road
toward New York
Silver Meteor
Petersburg
toward Charlotte
 Carolinian
Petersburg
toward Savannah
 Palmetto
Main Street Station and Trainshed
Richmond Main Street Station in 1971
NRHP reference No.70000867
VLR No.127-0172
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1970[2]
Designated NHLDecember 8, 1976[3]
Designated VLRJuly 7, 1970[4]
Location
Richmond – Main Street
Location within Virginia

Since 2018, the station has also been a stop along the GRTC Pulse bus rapid transit line.

History

Richmond's Main Street Station in the downtown area was built in 1901 by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL) and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O). Seaboard had introduced service to Richmond, and C&O had consolidated the former Virginia Central Railroad and the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad, which had previously maintained separate stations.

The ornate Main Street Station was designed by the Philadelphia firm of Wilson, Harris, and Richards in the Second Renaissance Revival style.[5] In the 1950s, Seaboard shifted its Richmond passenger service to Broad Street Station (now the Science Museum of Virginia), but C&O maintained offices in the upper floors, and its passenger service continued at Main Street Station until Amtrak took over in 1971.

Major long distance passenger train services in the mid and late 1960s included:

In 1970, Main Street Station and its trainshed, one of the last surviving trainsheds of its type in the nation, were added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1976 it was designated a National Historic Landmark.[3][5]

In 1972, Hurricane Agnes caused the James River to flood the station. The damage was so severe that in 1975, Amtrak moved its Richmond stops to Richmond Staples Mill Road, a much smaller suburban station in Henrico County, five miles north of downtown. To make matters worse, the station was damaged by fires in 1976 and 1983.[9] [10] Rail service did not return to Main Street Station until 2003, when it was renovated and returned to service on December 18.[11]

Station layout

The station is served by two daily Northeast Regional trains originating or terminating at Newport News. Northbound trains provide direct service to Union Station in Washington, Pennsylvania Station in New York, and South Station in Boston, among other stops.[12]

Ground level Station building and parking
Platform level Side platform, doors will open on the left, right
Track 1 ←      Northeast Regional toward Newport News (Williamsburg)
→      Northeast Regional toward Boston (Richmond – Staples Mill Road) →

Future services

Local officials hope to increase the number of trains by extending some services which now terminate at the suburban Henrico County station, Richmond Staples Mill Road station. The completion of a bypass around Acca Yard in March 2019 allowed a second Northeast Regional round trip to Norfolk to begin, though it did not immediately increase service to Main Street Station.[13] The 2017 Draft Environmental Impact Report of the DC2RVA project recommended routing all Staples Mill-serving trains through Main Street Station, while maintaining full service to Staples Mill. Other considered alternatives had involved closing one of the two stations, or replacing both with a single station at Boulevard or Broad Street.[14]

Main Street Station is located on the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor (SEHSR), a passenger rail transportation project planned to connect with the existing high speed rail corridor from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., known as the Northeast Corridor (served by Amtrak's Acela Express and Northeast Regional services and many commuter railroads) and extend similar high speed passenger rail services south through Richmond and Petersburg in Virginia through Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina. Since first established in 1992, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has since extended the corridor to Atlanta and Macon, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama.

In 2018, the station became a stop on the GRTC Bus Rapid Transit's Broad and Main Street Line. There are also plans for Main Street Station to become an intermodal station with Richmond's city bus services operated by GRTC, a public service company owned jointly by the City of Richmond and Chesterfield County.[15]

See also

References
  1. "Amtrak Fact Sheet, FY2018, Commonwealth of Virginia" (PDF). Amtrak Government Affairs. June 2019. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
  2. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  3. "Main Street Station and Trainshed". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  4. "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved 2013-03-12.
  5. Dennis M. Zembala and Eric DeLony (August 2, 1976). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Seaboard Airline/Chesapeake & Ohio Railroads: Main Street Station & Trainshed / New Union Station" (pdf). National Park Service. Cite journal requires |journal= (help) and Accompanying four photos, exterior and interior, from 1971 (32 KB)
  6. Official Guide of the Railways October 1967, 'Chesapeake and Ohio Railway'
  7. Seaboard Air Line 'Condensed time tables,' April 25, 1954 http://streamlinermemories.info/South/SAL54TT.pdf
  8. Official Guide of the Railways June 1963, 'Seaboard Air Line'
  9. The History of Main Street Station (Richmond Metropolitan Authority) Archived 2011-11-01 at the Wayback Machine
  10. Heidi Schwartz (August 2005). "Richmond's Rail Revival". Today's Facility Manager. Retrieved 19 December 2009.
  11. "RICHMOND Main Street Station VIRGINIA (RVM)". TrainWeb. Retrieved 16 June 2010.
  12. "Virginia Service" (PDF). Amtrak.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-06-19. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  13. Suarez Rojas, C. (March 5, 2019). "State transportation officials announce completion of bypass designed to alleviate Acca Yard bottleneck". Richmond Times-Dispatch.
  14. "Executive Summary". TIER II DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (PDF). Washington, D.C. to Richmond Southeast High Speed Rail Project. Federal Railroad Administration and Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation. September 2017. pp. 63, 64.
  15. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/business/transportation/article/COVR01_20090529-224209/270831/

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