Prince station is an

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

station in

Prince, West Virginia Prince is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fayette County, West Virginia, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 116. Located at an altitude of 1,263 feet (385 m), it is served by an Amtrak The National Rail ...

, served by the ''

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...

''. It serves as the main depot for the Beckley area because it is on the

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

(originally

Chesapeake & Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to ...

) mainline while Beckley itself is not.

History

The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway built the first facility in 1880 that was enlarged in 1891 to serve both freight and passengers. In 1942, the C&O president,

Robert R. Young Robert Ralph Young (February 14, 1897 – January 25, 1958) was an American financier and industrialist. He is best known for leading the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and the New York Central Railroad during and after World War II. He was a ...

, saw a need for "a stylish, streamlined, and efficient passenger rail system" that led to the development of the current station.

Design

The design of the Prince

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing suc ...

is Art Moderne, similar to

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

, with a horizontal design, emphasizing movement and sleekness. Built in 1946, the architectural firm was Garfield, Harris, Robinson, & Schafer that was headquartered in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, Ohio. The main terminal building is and the waiting area features tall ceilings and large windows, as well as a large wall

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

depicting

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

and the importance of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

. The

terrazzo floor Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bind ...

has embedded in it the original C&O “Chessie” kitten logo. The depot has a minimum of ornamentation. Each end of the canopy is rounded and topped with

Streamline Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...

stainless steel lettering spelling out "Prince". The canopy is oriented so that the sun would warm waiting passengers in the winter time, while shading them in the summer. Prince station 2022b.jpg, Building overview in 2022 Prince station 2022c.jpg, Front entrance in 2022 Prince station 2022f.jpg, Passenger platform side in 2022 Prince station 2022d.jpg, Interior in 2022

Future

With an upsurge in activities in the

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is a unit of the United States National Park Service (NPS) designed to protect and maintain the New River Gorge in southern West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains. Established in 1978 as a nat ...

, and the development of

the Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve The Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve, often shortened as Summit Bechtel Reserve (SBR), located in Fayette and Raleigh counties, near Beckley, West Virginia, is one of four facilities managed by the National Council of the Boy Scout ...

that is located from the station, plans are underway for improvements to the passenger facility as of late 2013.

References

External links

Prince Amtrak Station – USA Rail Guide (TrainWeb)
{{Amtrak West Virginia stations Amtrak stations in West Virginia Buildings and structures in Fayette County, West Virginia Railway stations in West Virginia Stations along Chesapeake and Ohio Railway lines Transportation in Fayette County, West Virginia Art Deco architecture in West Virginia