Detroit Amtrak Station

With the Obama Administration's increased focus on high speed rail in Michigan and really passenger rail service in general, does anyone know if any plans are in the works for a renovation of the Detroit Amtrak station? I was reading an article recently that discussed how the Amtrak stations in Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Troy, Dearborn, East Lansing, and Ann Arbor have either been renovated, are being renovated, or are currently studying renovations [[Kalamazoo and Battle Creek done, Troy, East Lansing, and Dearborn under construction, and Ann Arbor studying). It seems that the priority for renovation should be the Detroit station in New Center. It is currently quite sadly underwhelming for a city of our size and with M1 beginning construction, this station will be even more a front door to this city. Discuss.

Supposedly there are/were plans for an Amtrack/M1 inter-transit at the top of the M1 line north of New Center

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Originally Posted by rb336

Supposedly there are/were plans for an Amtrack/M1 inter-transit at the top of the M1 line north of New Center

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There are. Opposite side of the tracks. The M1 will stop there and then have, I believe, one more stop further north right at the Boulevard.

Guarded lit parking would be nice. More than the ten spaces that are there now.

Station size is not based on the size of the city but on the number of trains and passengers to be handled daily. Even during the "golden age" of rail travel, Miami had two very small stations while Jacksonville, FL had a "taj mahal".

Detroit will not have that many more trains a day even with the Ann Arbor commuter and nobody will be transferring to a connecting train in Detroit. The stations being renovated on the line are quite old. Detroit's "Amshack" is relatively new.

The Cities mentioned in the first post petitioned Amtrak/the Feds for funding through ARRA [[the stimulus program) for these improvements. The City of Detroit has not. The City however has received ARRA funds for many projects including funding for new buses, the Midtown Loop, a connector of the Midtown loop and the Dequindre Cut, street resurfacings, and many other projects.

Detroit has different priorities.

P.S. You forgot to mention that Pontiac has an entirely new station. The Birmingham/Troy station is needed because there is no station at the stop now. You wait for the train in a bus shelter. The new station will have connections to SMART bathroom facilities, and a taxi stand. It literally has nothing now.

VIA Rail opened a new depot in Windsor last fall. They run five trains a day
from Windsor to Toronto, one of them continuing to Montreal.

Amtrak has a long history of using and thinking about depots in Detroit. When they came into existence in May, 1971 they used the Michigan Central depot but that was very expensive to maintain. Within a few years, they purchased a trailer, parked it behind the Michigan Central depot and used that as their Detroit station until the small new one at Baltimore and Woodward opened in 1993.
When Cobo was remodeling for the first time, I believe that space was provided in the lower level for a possible downtown rail station. I have heard that Amtrak considered converting that space into a downtown depot. That never happened.
The present Detroit Amtrak depot is in a good location since it is near the
section of the city where job growth and population growth is occurring.
There are several organizations promoting a network of trains connecting Midwestern cities. It is possible that the number of trains serving Detroit will grow in future years. For about a century, there were through trains from Detroit across Canada to both the US east coast and to Toronto and Montreal. Present security regulations appear to preclude the reestablishing of international trains east from Detroit. That could change.

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Originally Posted by renf

When Cobo was remodeling for the first time, I believe that space was provided in the lower level for a possible downtown rail station. I have heard that Amtrak considered converting that space into a downtown depot. That never happened.

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The North Side of the Joe Louis Parking structure was the spot for this station. It was built with a train station with access to the people mover in mind. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Joe+Lo...=12,41.54,,0,0

The East Lansing depot is not "under construction" yet. It's still waiting for Federal Transit Administration money to be released. The only physical evidence of the new station is a banner and some groundwater monitoring wells.

Amtrak did not start using the Rose St. trailer "within a few years" after 1971; the MC Depot was used until Jan. 1988. When Conrail moved its offices out of the MC Depot in 1985, Amtrak could not afford to shoulder the whole maintenance burden by itself.

Some years back I was talking to an Amtrak agent who had worked in Detroit, and he said that unforeseen clearance problems with the People Mover structure led to Amtrak abandoning plans for a Cobo/Joe Louis station.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

The Cities mentioned in the first post petitioned Amtrak/the Feds for funding through ARRA [[the stimulus program) for these improvements. The City of Detroit has not. The City however has received ARRA funds for many projects including funding for new buses, the Midtown Loop, a connector of the Midtown loop and the Dequindre Cut, street resurfacings, and many other projects.

Detroit has different priorities.

P.S. You forgot to mention that Pontiac has an entirely new station. The Birmingham/Troy station is needed because there is no station at the stop now. You wait for the train in a bus shelter. The new station will have connections to SMART bathroom facilities, and a taxi stand. It literally has nothing now.

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So this car friendly town is not going to have the high speed train stopping at the Amtrak station in the New Cener Area? That would had made sense to have it to stop there also and the renovation of that station would had made sense. Visitors would have to take a cab, rent a CAR, or take some other type of VEHICLE to get from Dearborn to Detroit for Detroit had once again made the center more car dependent and less other commute convient. Go figure

I had understood from Conductors that the slow curve used to conncect from New Center to the John Kronk straightway was being rebuilt and the detroit run would take 10 to 12 minutes to get to the new Dearborn station, at that point the 80 plus mph kicks in. The state just purchased the NorthfortSouthern track between Detroit and Jackson and track work should start pretty quickly.

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Originally Posted by detroitbob

I had understood from Conductors that the slow curve used to conncect from New Center to the John Kronk straightway was being rebuilt and the detroit run would take 10 to 12 minutes to get to the new Dearborn station, at that point the 80 plus mph kicks in. The state just purchased the NorthfortSouthern track between Detroit and Jackson and track work should start pretty quickly.

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80 mph won't work until they are much further out. There are still numerous at grade crossings until you get out of Ann Arbor. Yes they will be able to goose it a bit more in the Detroit Urbanized area, but it won't be superfast as you always get some Bozo trying to run the train.