Poughkeepsie station

Poughkeepsie
Poughkeepsie station in 2007
General information
Location	41 Main Street Poughkeepsie, New York United States
Coordinates	41°42′26″N73°56′18″W / 41.70722°N 73.93833°W / 41.70722; -73.93833
Owned by	Metro-North Railroad
Line(s)	Hudson Line
Platforms	1 side platform, 1 island platform
Tracks	4
Connections	Dutchess County Public Transit: A, B, C, D, E, Poughkeepsie RailLink Leprechaun Lines: White Plains Bus Short Line Bus: X32N Ulster County Area Transit: Ulster-Poughkeepsie LINK
Construction
Parking	1,101 spaces
Accessible	Yes
Other information
Station code	Amtrak: POU
Fare zone	9 (Metro-North)
History
Opened	January 4, 1850 [1]
Rebuilt	1916–February 17, 1918 [2] [3] [4] 2009
Passengers
FY 2022	111,135 [5] (Amtrak)

Preceding station	Amtrak			Following station
Rhinecliff toward Montreal		Adirondack		Croton–Harmon toward New York
Rhinecliff toward Pittsfield		Berkshire Flyer (seasonal)
Rhinecliff toward Niagara Falls, New York		Empire Service
Rhinecliff toward Burlington		Ethan Allen Express
Rhinecliff toward Chicago		Lake Shore Limited
Rhinecliff toward Toronto		Maple Leaf
Preceding station	Metro-North Railroad			Following station
Terminus		Hudson Line		New Hamburg toward Grand Central

Former services
Preceding station Amtrak Following station Albany–Rensselaer toward Chicago Lake Shore Croton–Harmon toward New York (Grand Central) Rhinecliff toward Detroit (Michigan Central) Niagara Rainbow Preceding station New York Central Railroad Following station Hyde Park toward Chicago Main Line Camelot toward New York

Poughkeepsie Railroad Station

U.S. National Register of Historic Places

Area8.7 acres (3.5 ha)Architect Warren & Wetmore Architectural style Beaux Arts NRHP reference No. 76001214 ^[7] Added to NRHPNovember 21, 1976

Location

Poughkeepsie station is a Metro-North Railroad and Amtrak stop serving the city of Poughkeepsie, New York. The station is the northern terminus of Metro-North's Hudson Line, and an intermediate stop for Amtrak's several Empire Corridor trains.

Built in 1918, the main station building is meant to be a much smaller version of Grand Central Terminal. It was a source of civic pride when it opened. In 1976 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Poughkeepsie Railroad Station; it and Philipse Manor are the only Hudson Line stations outside Manhattan to be so recognized.

Station layout

Waiting room

The station is a four-story building built into a rockface, with the bottom two levels given over to the tracks and the top two accounted for by the main waiting room, a two-story brick-faced building. Its five-bay facade features sculptured masonry designs over the five high arched windows. To the west, a 420x15-foot (128x5 m) steel-frame overhead walkway provides access to the tracks via stairs and elevators. Today it continues westward to provide access to the adjacent parking garage. At the time of the station's construction, it served the businesses along Main Street. ^[4]

The waiting room, modeled on Grand Central Terminal, ^[4] is a high gallery lit during daylight by the windows and the three original chandeliers. The 14 benches within are also original finished chestnut pieces. The walls are paneled in wood to eight feet (240 cm), after which the carved stone shows all the way to the cornice. More original woodwork, the stained walnut rafters, is present in the ceiling, possibly modeled after a similar design in San Miniato al Monte, an 11th-century church in Florence, Italy. ^[4]

Amenities include bathrooms (also modernized), a concession stand, as well as a ticket counter selling Metro-North tickets alongside two vending machines which also sell MetroCards. There is no checked baggage service for Amtrak trains; Amtrak tickets are available only via a Quik-Trak kiosk. The northernmost MTA Police substation is adjacent to the station as well. In the late 1960s the North-South Arterial (US 9) was built and elevated immediately to the station's east, somewhat isolating it from the rest of the city.

There are four tracks at the platform level, enough to accommodate Amtrak and Metro-North stops simultaneously, and from west to east numbered 2, 1, 3, and 5. Only tracks 2, 1, and 3 are regularly used. Track 5, the easternmost, has a lower speed limit and is used mainly for non-revenue maintenance trains or those experiencing difficulties. The station has a high-level island platform, high level side platform, and a low level side platform, each six cars long and slightly offset from each other. Only the high level platforms are used in passenger service. ^{[8] : 8}

History

Poughkeepsie station around 1890

The station building in 2006

The first Poughkeepsie station was built in 1850 as what became the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route worked its way up the Hudson River. For its first two years it was the end of the line, but even after it was completed all the way to Albany, it remained the most important intermediate stop. Many local industries, particularly the carpet mills and shoe factories in the city, used the rail facilities to get their products to market. The concentration of industry around a major rail stop also led to the rise of banking and finance within the city as well. ^[4]

In 1889, with the completion of the nearby Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge providing east-west rail service across the Hudson, Poughkeepsie became even more important to regional rail transportation. When it came time for a third station to be built on the site, the firm of Warren & Wetmore was hired to design a station that would impress travelers and communicate the city's confidence and cosmopolitan aspirations. They chose to model it on Grand Central, another successful design of theirs. ^[4]

After five years of design and construction, the station was opened on February 18, 1918. The city's main newspaper, then the Poughkeepsie Eagle (now the Poughkeepsie Journal ) was unstinting in its praise:

Poughkeepsie woke up Sunday and rubbed its eyes when it visited the new station of the New York Central Railroad, and gasped. Was this Poughkeepsie or a station in the Bronx? The new building certainly surpassed anything dreamed of by the present generation of Poughkeepsians and no more will travelers get a poor impression of the place by what they see when they alight from the railroad trains. ^[4]

The building has remained largely intact since then, despite declines in passenger rail use and the demise of the New York Central. It has since transitioned, under the auspices of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, from being a station for primarily intercity rail to the commuter services of Metro-North. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. Until April 4, 2009, the southbound Lake Shore Limited (Train 48) stopped at the station, as well as at Hudson, and Rhinecliff stations. On November 8, 2010, Lake Shore Limited service to the station was restored in both directions, and later at Rhinecliff, but not at Hudson.

A massive restoration in the late 20th century included the reconstruction of the overpass from the station to Main Street and a large parking garage to serve commuters (many of whom come from points north and west). Since the 1990s, there have been rumors and plans to expand the Hudson Line north to Rhinecliff (or even further to Rensselaer). Local property owners have objected to the given plans to build stations in Hyde Park and Staatsburg though those who do commute via Poughkeepsie are in favor of the plan.

The Berkshire Flyer began running on July 8, 2022, providing direct service to Pittsfield on summer weekends. ^[9]

Bibliography

• Hasbrouck, Frank (1909). The History of Dutchess County, New York. Poughkeepsie, New York: S.A. Matthieu. Retrieved June 21, 2022.

References

1. Hasbrouck 1909, p. 221.
2. "Begin Work Soon on New Station". The Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. April 17, 1916. p. 5. Retrieved June 21, 2022– via Newspapers.com.
3. Gildersleeve, E.D. (February 18, 1918). "Poughkeepsie's New Station a Credit to City". The Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. p. 5. Retrieved June 21, 2022– via Newspapers.com.
4. Howe, Patricia; Moore, Katherine (February 25, 1976). "National Register of Historic Places nomination, Poughkeepsie Railroad station". Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved January 19, 2008.
5. "Amtrak Fact Sheet, Fiscal Year 2022: State of New York" (PDF). Amtrak. June 2022. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
6. METRO-NORTH 2018 WEEKDAY STATION BOARDINGS. Market Analysis/Fare Policy Group:OPERATIONS PLANNING AND ANALYSIS DEPARTMENT:Metro-North Railroad. April 2019. p. 6.
7. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
8. "Metro-North Railroad Track & Structures Department Track Charts Maintenance Program Interlocking Diagrams & Yard Diagrams 2015" (PDF). Metro-North Railroad. 2015. Retrieved January 28, 2019.
9. Britton-Mehlisch, Meg (July 8, 2022). "'Sold out' Berkshire Flyer train is rolling towards Pittsfield, after on-time departure from New York City". The Berkshire Eagle. Retrieved July 8, 2022.

External links

• Poughkeepsie, NY – Amtrak
• Poughkeepsie, NY – Station history at Great American Stations (Amtrak)
• Metro-North station page for Poughkeepsie
• List of upcoming Metro-North train departure times and track assignments from MTA