Amshack back on the chopping block

Boy, it was nice of me to agree to guest blog for Kevin, then disappear for a week, huh?  (Let's just say it's been a very interesting week at work.) 

Anyway, a little tidbit appeared in today's N&O regarding the on-again, off-again, no-wait-maybe-back-on-again new Amtrack station at West Village.  A brief history is that West Village and NC-DOT agreed to terms on the site, West Village built it into their plans and gave NC-DOT a heavily discounted rent rate, NC-DOT decided it wasn't discounted enough, and a spitting match ensued.  Word out today is, yes, it's back on again.

The Amshack's days really are numbered, according to Durham Transportation Director Mark Ahrendsen.

Sometime soon, rail travelers will arrive at and leave from the Walker Warehouse in West Village II rather than the Amshack, the "interim" Chapel Hill Street depot that has served Durham since 1996.

"NCDOT and the city and Blue Devil [Ventures] have reached an agreement," Ahrendsen said this week. "The plans are proceeding."

Yes, Durham, the town built on the railroad and named after a man who donated land for a train station, will soon have something other than a double-wide for its Amtrack passengers.  (To learn how we got to this decrepit state, take a look at Gary's post about Union Station from last year.)  But lest it, like this news clip, get lost in the shuffle, a big shout out is due to Mark Ahrendsen, the soft spoken but exceptionally effective transportation manager for the city.  By appearances, it was Ahrendsen's steady hand which found a way through this situation, to what is likely going to be a plus for Amtrack as well as for downtown.

And as for the Amshack, good riddance.

(Hat tip to the eagle-eyed John Schelp for catching this.)

-Michael

Comments

[Phil]

Michael -- I hope you had a good week in wherever you disappeared to. And hey -- did Kevin actually hand over his username/password to the five or six of you? Wow! May that not bite him in the rear :-)

Oh, about Amshack.

1. Does this name make anyone else think about the Three Wise Men? What were their names -- Amshack, Sadlack's, and Ambacco?

But where was I... Oh yeah: Amshack. All I know is that I hope they keep the cool old luggage cart. Photo of similar here at :

http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/pictures/2004/08/toronto/pages/cimg2035/

Last I checked, you could take a daytrip on Amtrak from Burlington (from it's potentially very attractive downtown, maybe? I can't recall the location) to Rocky Mount (for lunch) and back in a day. Something fun to do if you'd like. And for pretty cheap. Stops at Amshack in Durham (much better than the old open-air bus-stop thing that was around for a good few years) and Raleigh before going to Rocky Mount. Maybe other stops in between. I'm being too lazy to look it up.

[Barry]

"did Kevin actually hand over his username/password to the five or six of you?"

No. Typepad allows for giving posting privileges to multiple accounts for a single blog.

Hopefully we haven't overstayed out welcome. I'm working on one final piece for tomorrow.

[frank]

...and it really is spelled Amtrak...

[frank]

...and it really is spelled Amtrak...

[Michael Bacon]

Phil: It wasn't the wise men. Those were the guys in the old testament who got thrown in the furnace and came out alive. But I like the list!

Frank: Doh! I knew that. Ah, the perils of blogging...

[Elijah Hezechiah Abraham Jones]

I have a civil war -era ancestor named Meshack.