Niagara Falls, New York (Amtrak station)

This article is about the station on the U.S. side. For the station on the Canadian side, see Niagara Falls, Ontario railway station.

Niagara Falls, NY station is an Amtrak station and western terminus of the Empire Corridor. It is located at Willard Avenue and 27th Street, south off Lockport Road on the northwest side of the CSX switching yard, in Niagara Falls, New York. There is an enclosed waiting area and ticket-selling location, but there is no platform, so trains are boarded in the open air.

Amtrak, in partnership with the State of New York, restored passenger rail service to Niagara Falls in October 1978. More than 500 people turned out on October 29th for the inaugural ceremonies, which included speeches by Congressman John LaFalce; William C. Hennessy, commissioner, New York Department of Transportation; and Niagara Falls Mayor Michael O'Loughlin. As the ceremony concluded, the eastbound Niagara Rainbow arrived.

The station was originally built as a freight depot in 1959 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which provided an earlier iteration of a New York-Toronto Maple Leaf passenger train over an interior route via Geneva, New York and Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Service

File:Niagara Falls Amtrak Station.jpg

The station depot in 2012

The station is served by six trains daily:

• Empire Service (Amtrak), two eastbounds to Pennsylvania Station (New York City) and two westbound terminations.
• Maple Leaf (Amtrak/VIA), one eastbound to Pennsylvania Station (New York City) and one westbound to Union Station (Toronto).

Notable places nearby

• Niagara Falls State Park
• Reservoir State Park

The future

File:Niagara Falls Station future.jpg

The new station at Niagara Falls under construction in August 2015

State and local governments plan on building a new multi-million dollar intermodal transportation center out of the U.S. Customhouse to replace the current station. This work is to be part of a three phase project titled the Niagara Falls International Railway Station. It calls for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to share with Amtrak a complex consisting of the old customhouse and modern additions.

The project consists of three phases, with a total estimated cost of $44 million. Construction on the project began in August 2010, with funding only for the first two phases.

In October 2010, the US Department of Transportation released $16.5 million in funds from the TIGER program for work on the final phase of the International Station project.

External links

• Amtrak – Stations – Niagara Falls, NY
• Niagara Falls Amtrak Station (USA RailGuide – TrainWeb)
• Flickr Image
• Niagara Falls, N.Y. (Great American Stations)

• Surviving New York Railroad Stations (AmericanRails.com)
• Existing Railroad Stations in Niagara County, New York