The Boehlert Transportation Center at Union Station is a

train station A train station, railroad station, or railway station 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 ...

served by

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 intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

and the Adirondack Railroad in

Utica, New York Utica () is the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most populous city in New York, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 census. It is located on the Mohawk River in the Mohawk Valley at the foot of the Adiro ...

. It is owned by Oneida County, and named for retired U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-New Hartford). The station was built in the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

style and includes a rusticated granite first story with buff brick above. Symmetrically rectangular in plan, there are thirteen bays across the façade and fifteen on the side elevations. A brick parapet crowns the building; over the main entrance is a large clock flanked by eagle sculptures. The Utica station was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Inside is a restaurant and a barber shop, one of the few barber shops in a train station today. The waiting room's vaulted ceiling is supported by 34 marble columns. The station's blueprints called for the importing of columns that originally adorned

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal station, terminal located at 42nd Street (Manhattan), 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York Ci ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Twelve large benches are heated by steam pipes and vents incorporated into the benches themselves. A total of eight Amtrak trains use the station daily: two trains (one eastbound, one westbound) on the ''

Lake Shore Limited The ''Lake Shore Limited'' is an Amtrak Long Distance, overnight passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and the Northeastern United States, with sections to New York City and Boston. The central segment of the route runs along the s ...

'', four trains (two in each direction) on the ''

Empire Service The ''Empire Service'' is an inter-city rail service operated by Amtrak within the state of New York in the United States. The brand name originated with the New York Central Railroad in 1967. Trains on the line provide frequent daily service ...

'', and two trains (one in each direction) on the ''

Maple Leaf The maple leaf is the characteristic leaf of the maple tree. It is most widely recognized as the national symbols of Canada, national symbol of Canada. History of use in Canada By the early 1700s, the maple leaf had been adopted as an emblem by ...

''. In addition, the Adirondack Railroad operates a

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) ...

from Utica to Holland Patent, Remsen and Thendara, New York, terminating in Tupper Lake on a seasonal basis.

Station layout

As it currently exists, Union Station has one

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, ...

(originally the third island platform), accessible directly from the parking lot, serving eastbound Amtrak trains on Track 2 (the former Track 10); and one

island platform An island platform (also center platform (American English) or centre platform (British English)) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway inte ...

(slightly widened from its original dimensions) serving westbound Amtrak trains on Track 1 (former Track 11) and Adirondack Railroad trains on the northern side (former Track 13). These are linked by an aerial walkway, constructed during station renovations at the turn of the 21st century.

History

The station was built between 1912 and May 1914, replacing an older structure dating from 1869. The building was designed by New York architects Stem and Fellheimer. Construction involved the rerouting of the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson R ...

. The Mohawk River was relocated due to the risk of flooding and the proximity of the river to the railroad, which had become a problem for the expanding city. Built as a

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...

station, in 1915 it became tenanted by the

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad, was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, and by ferry with New York City, a distance of . The railroad was ...

and the

New York, Ontario and Western Railway The New York, Ontario and Western Railway, commonly known as the O&W or NYO&W, was a regional railroad founded in 1868. The last train ran from Norwich, New York, to Middletown, Orange County, New York, Middletown, New York, in 1957, after whi ...

as well, those two companies abandoning their own stations. At one time, the waiting room also contained three ticket windows, an information office, 15 pay telephones, a

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the co ...

office, two shoeshine stands, a bar and grill. The Western Union Office is no longer there. As originally built, the station featured six

s with one alighting platform directly accessible from the station building, serving 12 tracks for

trains; these were numbered 5 through 16 from south to north. (Tracks 1 and 2 were, respectively, the eastbound and westbound mainline for non-stop trains between Tracks 10 and 11, while Tracks 3 and 4 ran through the yards north of the station proper.) One additional dead-end island platform on the west side of the station building served the

(southern track) and

(northern track), for a grand total of eight platforms serving 14 tracks. All platforms were linked by an underground passageway. The NYO&W ended its passenger service into Union Station between 1921 and 1932. Post-WWII reductions in passenger traffic led to service cuts and the eventual bankruptcy of the remaining railroads, the Lackawanna and the New York Central. The last Lackawanna trains bound for

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...

and

Binghamton Binghamton ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the con ...

left in 1950. Into the mid-1950s sleeper cars from the ''

North Star Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris ( Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude t ...

'' and into the early 1960s the ''Iroquois'' went to Lake Placid from Union Station. The final NYC trains from Lake Placid on the Adirondack Division ran on April 24, 1965.Gove, William. 'Logging Railroads in the Adirondacks,' Syracuse, NY: 2006, p. 71. By the late 1960s, only the mainline

Water Level Route The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

(the modern Amtrak

Empire Corridor The Empire Corridor is a passenger rail corridor in New York State running between Penn Station in New York City and . Major cities on the route include Poughkeepsie, Albany, Schenectady, Amsterdam, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffal ...

) continued to operate regular passenger service. Over time, all but the two centermost platforms were demolished, and the space originally occupied by the first seven station-side tracks was converted into passenger parking. The interior of the large waiting room features extensive use of marble columns and revetments with terrazzo flooring throughout. The original waiting room benches, which incorporate steam pipes and vents, remain in use. The station's restoration began in 1978, but refurbishing/restoration work continues to this day. The building is listed on the NRHP, both as a stand-alone item and as part of Bagg's Square East National Register Historic District.

Bus service

Bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

companies serving the station, one of the first intermodal facilities in the state, include the following: * CENTRO of Oneida *

Greyhound Lines Greyhound Lines, Inc. is an American operator of Intercity bus service, intercity bus services. Greyhound operates the largest intercity bus network in the United States, and also operates charter and Amtrak Thruway services, as well as interci ...

* Birnie Bus Services *

Adirondack Trailways Trailways of New York is one of the largest privately held transportation companies based in New York State. It employs over 450 people and carries passengers more than 80 million miles annually. TrailwaysNY, as it is known, operates over 150 tr ...

Coach USA Coach USA, LLC is a holding company for various American transportation service providers providing scheduled intercity bus service, local and commuter bus transit, city sightseeing, tour, yellow school bus, and charter bus service across the ...

Chenango Valley Bus Company Short Line is a brand name for three different Coach USA companies, Hudson Transit Lines, Hudson Transit Corporation, and Chenango Valley Bus Lines that provide local, commuter and intercity bus service in lower New York (state), New York Stat ...

References

External links

Boehlert Transportation Center at Union Station
{{NYC Main Line stations 1914 establishments in New York (state) Utica Buildings and structures in Utica, New York Bus stations in New York (state) Former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad stations Former New York Central Railroad stations Former New York, Ontario and Western Railway stations National Register of Historic Places in Oneida County, New York Railway stations in the United States opened in 1914 Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Reed and Stem buildings Transit centers in the United States Transportation buildings and structures in Oneida County, New York Utica