The first of 70 new Amtrak locomotives rolled off the assembly line yesterday. They will fully replace all the locomotives on Amtrak’s non-Acela Northeast Regional trains, and can reach a top speed of about 125 miles per hour. Expect to start seeing them in service between DC and Boston this autumn.

Amtrak’s new “ACS-64″ locomotive. Photo from Amtrak.

Baltimore’s decades-long population decline has officially reversed. The city grew by about 1,100 people last year. Congrats to Baltimore!

In more specific but also exciting news, Amtrak has adopted a new master plan for Baltimore’s Penn Station. It includes significant new development around the station, and a new canopy over the tracks that would dramatically improve the rider experience.

The plans are conceptual, and will have to go into greater detail before development can begin.

Concept plan for Penn Station. Image by Beatty Development.

Chicago Union Station, busiest outside the Northeast. Photo by Vincent Desjardins.

As a follow-up to Monday’s map of Amtrak stations by ridership, here are the 10 busiest, ranked in order. Although it’s not surprising that New York, Washington, and Philadelphia are the top 3, it is pretty surprising that 2 of the top 5 and 4 of the top 10 are nowhere near the Northeast.

Number 1: New York Penn Station
8,995,551 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 2: Washington DC Union Station
4,850,685 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 3: Philadelphia 30th Street Station
3,872,392 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 4: Chicago Union Station
3,393,695 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 5: Los Angeles Union Station
1,606,121 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 6: Boston South Station
1,360,162 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 7: Sacramento Valley Station
1,175,046 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 8: Baltimore Penn Station
953,170 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 9: Albany-Rensselaer Station
769,626 boardings/deboardings per year.

Number 10: San Diego Union Station
753,739 boardings/deboardings per year.

The rest of the top 25 includes most of the secondary stations in the northeast, like Wilmington (12), BWI Airport (17), and Harrisburg (21), plus 6 more stations outside the northeast. Those are Seattle (14), Portland (15), Irvine (16), Milwaukee (19), Emeryville (20), and Bakersfield (24).

It’s common knowledge that the Northeast Corridor is Amtrak’s best line, but the northeast is not the only place in the US where a lot of people ride intercity trains. This map by Michael Hicks shows that California, the area around Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest also stand out as high ridership areas.

In the map, each circle represents one Amtrak station. The larger the circle, the more riders there are at that station.

Image by Michael Hicks on flickr.

Note: Map creator Mike Hicks updated the map to remove Amtrak bus connections, and add Canadian cities where Amtrak trains end. This post has been updated with the new map. He also supplies the first draft of a separate close-in map of the Northeast. – February 6, 2013

Railroads and the Making of Modern America has a really interesting series of maps up, illustrating how long it took to travel across the country at various times in American history.

In 1800 it took 4 days to get from DC to New York. By 1830 it took only 2, and by the 1850s it could be done in less than 1.

Here’s the first map, but take a look at them all.

Amtrak’s current Virginia map.

America’s passenger rail network may still be decades behind Europe and Asia, but real progress is being made. Virginia in particular is in the midst of a big expansion in service, with at least 4 major improvement projects:

1. 2009 Lynchburg extension: Starting in 2009, some Northeast Regional Amtrak trains running between DC and Boston began going south to Lynchburg, doubling the Amtrak service from Lynchburg to DC.
2. Washington-Richmond track improvements: With help from federal stimulus funding, additional tracks are being added on the busy DC-to-Richmond line. The tracks are currently shared with freight trains and are at capacity, so new tracks will allow more (and faster) passenger trains to run.
3. Norfolk extension: For decades the only Amtrak service to the Norfolk metro area ended at Newport News, well north of the region’s population centers. Starting in just a few days, on December 12, Amtrak will initiate a new route extending from Richmond’s Staples Mill Station (unfortunately not the more convenient Main Street Station) south to downtown Norfolk, with an intermediate stop in Petersburg.
4. Roanoke extension: Starting in 2018, the Lynchburg-DC-Boston train will be extended to Roanoke, which is currently the largest metro area in Virginia without rail service.

These improvements won’t make Virginia the next Japan, but they are solid investments that mark an important return of rail service to key Virginia cities.

In my humble and possibly biased opinion, Washington Union Station is the best train station in the US. A strong case could certainly be made for New York’s Grand Central, and there are plenty of other good ones around the country. But neither our Union Station, nor Grand Central, nor any of America’s largest or most active train stations, have a great train room. There are some small US stations that still have train sheds, such as Harrisburg, but they aren’t grand public spaces like in Europe.

But soon that will change. Denver is building a new train shed on the back of its historic Union Station, in support of a massive regional light rail and commuter rail expansion. And it’s going to be super cool. Construction has been ongoing for quite a while, but over the last week crews have started to put up the train shed itself. You can watch them at work and keep up with progress using the construction webcam.

Here’s what the train room will look like when done:

Image from the Denver Union Station Project Authority.

And here’s their construction progress, as of this morning:

Webcam image from Kiewit Construction.

The platform at NoMa Metro station is one of the best places in the United States to see passenger trains. Since NoMa is above ground just north of Union Station, visitors can see a steady stream of Amtrak, MARC, and VRE trains coming and going from Union Station. And with the US Capitol dome in the distance, there’s also the bonus of a nice setting.

A couple of weeks ago I happened to be there around rush hour, so I stuck around for 15 or 20 minutes and got a bunch of pictures. A few are shown here, with the full set of 24 on flickr.

	Acela.
	Amtrak Regional.
	MARC.
	VRE.

Last year about this time I visited Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver. I prepared a slideshow of transportation photos from the three cities to share with coworkers. It’s essentially a tour of rail, bus, and bike infrastructure within each city. Why not share it here too?

Click the image to download a pdf of the slideshow. It’s about 16 Mb. If you just want to see the photos in flickr without commentary, here they are.

Click to download pdf.

Starting today, Greyhound and Peter Pan buses that have traditionally used their own bus station at 1st and L St, NE will instead use the Union Station garage. The 1st and L site was sold for redevelopment, so the bus station building there will soon be no more.

It’s doubtful that anyone will shed a tear for the old bus station, which has about as poor a street presence as a transit station could possibly have, and which is obviously an under-use of its downtown land. But still, a transit station is a transit station, and I love transit stations. So bad as the building’s reputation may be, I do regret never visiting the place before it lost its transit.

Having never been inside, and being curious, I asked on twitter if anyone has photos of the place. Luckily, NoMa ANC Commissioner Tony Goodman was there today for the closing, and responded with a picture, copied below. Thanks Tony!

Bus station interior. My curiosity is satisfied.