Miami station (Amtrak)

Miami, FL
Miami station in October 2017
Location 8303 NW 37th Avenue
Miami, Florida
Coordinates 25°50′59″N 80°15′29″W / 25.84972°N 80.25806°W / 25.84972; -80.25806Coordinates: 25°50′59″N 80°15′29″W / 25.84972°N 80.25806°W / 25.84972; -80.25806
Owned by Amtrak
Platforms 2 island platforms
Tracks 3
Construction
Parking Yes
Disabled access Yes
Other information
Station code MIA
History
Opened June 20, 1978[1]
Closed Late 2018 (planned)[2]
Traffic
Passengers (2017) 66,110[3] Increase 0.2% (Amtrak)
Services
Preceding station   Amtrak   Following station
TerminusSilver Star
toward New York
Silver Meteor

Miami station is a train station in Miami-Dade County, Florida, on the border of Miami and Hialeah. It is the southern terminus for Amtrak's Silver Meteor and Silver Star trains. The station opened in 1978 to replace a 48-year-old Seaboard Air Line Railroad station. It is several blocks away from the Tri-Rail and Metrorail Transfer Station, but there is no direct connection between the stations. The station was scheduled to be replaced by Miami Central Station in Fall 2016, but was delayed to late 2018.[2]

History

An Amtrak train at the ex-SAL station in 1972
The Silver Meteor departs on June 20, 1978 - the first train to use the new station

When Amtrak took over intercity passenger service in May 1971, it continued to use the former Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL) station at 2210 NW 7th Avenue in Allapattah, two miles north of downtown. The SAL station, built in 1930, soon began to show its age. On May 13, 1977, Amtrak began construction of a new station near the SAL's Hialeah Yards.[1]

Completed in 1978, the building is one of many built under Amtrak's Standard Stations Program, an attempt to create a unified brand and identity for the company's passenger facilities in its early years. It is considered a Type 300A station, meaning it was designed to accommodate at least 300 passengers at the busiest hour of the day. It is nearly identical to the now closed Midway station in St. Paul, Minnesota, which was also built in 1978.[4]

The station building measured 85 feet (26 m) by 175 feet (53 m) with 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2) of floor space, with a large waiting room and other passenger facilities on the ground floor. A mezzanine housed a lounge and Amtrak regional offices. The $5.7 million station project included the fully handicapped accessible station, a 269-car parking lot, and two 2,000 foot (610 m)-long platforms to handle Amtrak's lengthy Florida trains.[1] A loop track runs around the station complex, allowing trains to be turned around for their northbound trips. The last trains arrived at the ex-SAL station on June 19, 1978; the northbound Silver Meteor departed from the new station on June 20 shortly before the ribbon-cutting ceremony.[1]

In the early 1990s, the Florida Department of Transportation began planning an intermodal station to link Tri-Rail, Amtrak, and Metrorail to the Miami International Airport. These plans were completed as the Miami Airport Station, located 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the current station and an equal distance west of downtown. Metrorail opened to the station in 2012, Tri-Rail commuter trains began serving the new Tri-Rail/Amtrak platforms in April 2015, and Amtrak was originally expected to serve this station in 2016, but an error during design resulted in platforms too short to accommodate the 13-car trains Amtrak uses during the winter. The original design would have resulted in grade crossings being blocked by the last cars of these longer trains.[5][6] After changes to traffic patterns around the station, Amtrak is expected to move from Miami Station to Miami Airport Station in late 2018.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "New Miami Station Dedicated, Open House Celebrates Event". Amtrak NEWS. Amtrak. 5 (7): 1–2. July 1978.
  2. 1 2 Alfonso Chardy (January 29, 2017). "The trains are too long, the platform is too short. Bad news for the new station". Miami Herald. Retrieved January 29, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Amtrak Fact Sheet, FY2017, State of Florida" (PDF). Amtrak. November 2017.
  4. ↑ "The Amtrak Standard Stations Program". History Blog. Amtrak. March 4, 2013. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  5. ↑ Viglucci, Andres (January 5, 2013). "At new Miami train station, too-short platform to require costly fixes". Miami Herald. Retrieved August 10, 2016.
  6. ↑ Krauth, Dan (February 13, 2015). "Miami Central Station Project Mistake Costing Taxpayers Millions". NBC 6 South Florida. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  7. ↑ "Background". Miami Intermodal Center. Florida Department of Transportation. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.