Seaboard Coastline Building, also known as Old City Hall, is a historic

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 s ...

located at Portsmouth, Virginia. The original section was built in 1894-1895 by the

Seaboard Air Line Railroad The Seaboard Air Line Railroad , which styled itself "The Route of Courteous Service," was an American railroad which existed from April 14, 1900, until July 1, 1967, when it merged with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, its longtime rival, t ...

. It is a five-story brick and concrete structure, with the top two floors added in 1914. The front facade features a distinctive half-round or semicylindrical profile intended to recall the imagery of the streamlined locomotives of the late-19th century. The building served as the northern terminus and office headquarters of the Seaboard Air Line until 1958. an
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Passenger train terminal

The station served multiple passenger trains daily. One train was the Portsmouth section of the SAL's full service '' Silver Comet,'' bound for Raleigh, North Carolina, Athens and Atlanta in Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama. Another train, #3-11 southbound/#6-10 northbound, was a coach-only train to Atlanta, making local stops along the way. The ''Silver Comet'' had its last trip into the station in 1968, when the SAL's successor, the merged

Seaboard Coast Line The Seaboard Coast Line Railroad was a Class I railroad company operating in the Southeastern United States beginning in 1967. Its passenger operations were taken over by Amtrak in 1971. Eventually, the railroad was merged with its affiliate lin ...

, terminated passenger service on the branch leading into Portsmouth.

Use in recent years

After the building was used for railroad purposes, it was used as the municipal building until 1980. an
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/ref> It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1985.

References

Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Railway stations in the United States opened in 1895 National Register of Historic Places in Portsmouth, Virginia Seaboard Air Line Railroad stations {{PortsmouthVA-NRHP-stub