It's a couple of days still until Friday's ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Amtrak station in West Village's Walker Warehouse, but the facility will get its soft-launch tomorrow in its beautiful and spacious 10,000 sq. ft. digs.
NCDOT has announced the station will open for business tomorrow, Wednesday July 7 at 6:30am. A 7:22am Piedmont train's departure to Charlotte, will be the first passenger train to make use of the new facility. The new station will open a half-hour earlier than the old station.
Passengers who arrive at the old "mobile home-style" station on W. Chapel Hill St. will see their new destination waiting across the tracks at West Village (601 W. Main).
The official ribbon-cutting for the station is set for 2pm Friday.
Update: NBC 17 points out that Durham's station is the fifth-busiest in North Carolina, and that the "waiting room" in the new station will be the state's largest.
Per the announcements they've been making for the past few days (advising passengers to park at the new station if they're traveling past 7/7), the impression I got was that they're planning on hauling the doublewide out of there ASAP. I think I heard one of the announcers actually say that it's leaving on 7/8. (he may've been mistaken, but that's what he said)
When I got home last night at midnight, every single light on the new, verrrrrrrry long platform was on (and when I left for work this morning (in broad daylight) at 8:45, they were *still* on). I've never seen a passenger train arrive or depart much past 8:30 p.m. or so, but perhaps they just want it to look purty for the passing midnight freight engineers? Either way, makes me even more glad my apartment doesn't directly face the station.
Posted by: Ross Grady | July 07, 2009 at 03:13 PM