Just over a week ago I attended a meeting in Daytona Beach, Florida with city leaders from along the Florida East Coast who are working to bring Amtrak Passenger Service back to the FEC. This is a project that has been in the works for quite some time now, however in recent month has started moving forward. Along with that came the FECI private venture announcement of Orlando to Miami passenger service. In this meeting planners and community leaders from SunRail gave a presentation about Planning of Stations, Station Services and Transit Oriented Development (TOD) patterns.

The interesting part was that they were not just talking about the stations but an area of 10 to 45 acres around the stations. In these areas cities are being encouraged to work with property owners and private developers to increase density and intensity use of the property. The Communities around the future SunRail Stations are working to set their "Regulatory Tables" to make it a business friendly area in the TOD area. The TODs will include business and residential development along with being pedestrian friendly.

While I realize that this a preservation forum, I got to thinking about how the preservation community could/should get involved when communities plan station services and development. Are there ways that the preservation community can benefit themselves and their communities beyond displaying "Old 97" or a caboose? Is this an opportunity to go beyond having a model railroad club in the depot? Is it possible for communities to turn the Train Station into the center point of a downtown again? What services from the past should be brought back? What lessons have learned and things that should not be done again? What will the 21st Century American Train Station look like?

We have had this trend going on for some time in my area. The "experience" is that it works reasonably well in already affluent communities through the creation of commuter villages in close proximity to the rail station. However it does not work nearly as well in the larger cities and poor communities primarily because the social crusaders get involved and the effort to "increase density" quickly progresses from "community living" to "subsidized low income housing", destroying any local single family housing in the process. Then you find out all the property around the station is being bought up by the local politicians, and you end up with the housing around the station taken by people who will seldom make use of the rail commuter service, plus part of the local criminal element who find the commuters a "target rich" environment. Net result is either an unsafe station that few commuters want to use, or on ongoing high expense security problem for the city. How can preservationists get involved? Maybe by pointing out to planners the potential security risks since many museums have experience with the problems of keeping expensive equipment protected from the criminal population.

PC

Making train riding an integral part of daily life is the most influential part of it.

Removing intensive retail activity, like coffee shops, news stands, etc in order to insert traditional museums is going the wrong way.

Perhaps the best we can do is to include as integral design features the appearance and construction materials that were historically used in former days wehn the station was the center of the community.....which will vary according to community. Getting off the train and walking through an 1890 streetscape, even if it has Starbucks in it, will naturally incline one towards nostalgia, more so certainly than chrome, glass, and poured concrete.

Making the operation of historic equipment an integral part of the plan - either on a regular schedule or for special events - is worth pursuing. Who wouldn't like to see (if not ride) a 1920's commuter coach behind FEC 148 on FEC rail?

dave

"Making train riding an integral part of daily life is the most influential part of it."--Dave

Indeed!! One wonders how much of the rail revival we are seeing comes from the experiences of not just travelers to Europe or Japan, but travelers here, who get a glimpse of what we threw away, courtesy of our heritage railroads. Granted, I don't think any of our operations would qualify for highway competitive speeds, with the exception of some rare main line excursions, but how many have found out how pleasant train travel can be from a Durango & Silverton, a Cumbres & Toltec, a White Pass & Yukon, a Strasburg, or a Pennsylvania Trolley Museum?

Dave's comment also reminded me that the partial revival of rail service on Cape Cod, most notably on the Greenbush line, was at boosted at least a little bit by people reading timetables at public meetings. Supposedly people listened to the trip times, and noted how the New Haven, even with steam engines, had decent running times back in the day, and how auto travel had become so congested that even those times would be competitive now. Of course, there was still controversy (we don't get no respect!) from people who thought trains wouldn't have riders, that they would be noisy, and that they would pollute the water with oil drippings. . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenbush_Line

I declare, sometimes I think we are reliving a part of the 1830s. . .you would think some of these new trains would make cows go dry (7:48 in the video clip below):

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business ... qus_thread

How many of us in the preservation field have had to deal with similar problems from an uninformed public, who think we will horribly pollute the air with steam engines, that we will kill kids, pedestrians, and motorists at grade crossings, and that we will keep people up at 2:00 in the morning with switching operations?

Oh well, enough of that rant. Back to trying to make a positive contribution. . .

A thing to keep in mind, though: These new services are supposed to be about "the future," not the past. There is every possibility we would face a hostile audience in everything from trying to have traditional stations to the proposed steam operation mentioned above.

Just be prepared for this sort of thing.

The metrics of interurban rail transportation haven't change much in the past 50 years and TOD hasn't "D'ed" in a lot of places (like BART stops) in almost that much time.

Given the longer haul, regional nature of the service, FECI will concentrate more on onboard amenities than line side development, unless they happen to own some adjoining land (most of the Flagler land is no longer with the company). The key to success will be the ability to "feed" the limited number of stations with shuttles from key origins and destinations....and don't hold your breath on the "Orlando link".

Preservation is about "what is", not "what will be". A lot more of what we value will be in the "was" category before the FECI service starts, if we take our eyes off of the preservation "ball". Our preservation challenges are here and now. With effort, FECI might be prepared to occasionally run a "heritage service" with appropriate operational Budd cars, if we can keep enough around.

Craig Brinkman
www.arpcp.org

The new Transportation Center in Perris, CA is mostly built. Many transit buses use it each day. It is adjacent to the historic Santa Fe Depot (now a museum) and the old downtown. Perris has upgraded the area considerably. A pocket is built in the platform area for Orange Empire Railway Museum trolleys (no track or wire yet). OERM track will have to be extended north a few blocks. Scheduled Metrolink (suburban) trains will come down from Los Angeles via Riverside hopefully beginning in 2013 but that date will probably slip. The opportunity for TOD at the Transportation Center is large with some vacant land available, but it awaits the trains and the economy.

Another example of railroad preservation with modern transit development is in my hometown of Littleton, Colorado. The stone depot is a circa 1881 Denver and Rio Grande structure that is currently use as a coffee shop and cafe. Down the stairs and ramps is the platform for Denver's Regional Transportation District light rail. Next to the platforn are the recessed tracks of the UP and BNSF tracks know as the "Jointline", (D&RGW, AT&SF and C&S). Local community historic projects also include the original Arapahoe County courthouse and many restorations on Littleton's mainstreet. In front of this stone depot is a RTD "Park and Ride" parking lot for Denver commuters. The modern depressed from ground level loading platform is finished in the same type of pink and grey Ryolite stone quarried from nearly the same quarry that the D&RG used over 125 years earlier for the depot.
http://www.littletongov.org/history/walkingtour/drgdepot/default.asp

In Dallas, in the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority's corridor, I would think a lot of the reason for the development of West Village and along Cityplace Blvd was due to the presence and permanence of the heritage trolley operation. I wonder if they've done any studies to determine how much development can be specifically attributed to the presence of the trolleys.

There's another system called BART? In the San Francisco BART area, you can see where the BART stations are by all the high-rises. Oakland 12th... Oakland 19th... Walnut Creek... massive blooms of development specifically around the stations. For many years there wasn't a building built more than 2 storeys that wasn't built walking distance from a BART station. It had a huge effect on development in the Bay Area. It didn't necessary follow "new urbanism" rules, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

It's true at some BART stations, you see little change. El Cerrito Plaza, North Berkeley... The reason for that is fairly draconian development laws that prohibit transit oriented development. On the other hand, those neighborhoods are old railroad suburbs, which means they already ARE transit oriented development, and possess all the characteristics one seeks in those.

The main place you hear about transit oriented development is when the transit station is next to an old industrial site. Instead of building condos crammed to the gills, they build condos, shops and office space crammed to the gills.

South End in Charlotte is a good example.....nothing but industrial lofts going vacant until light rail plans made the developers take notice. While in a more perfect world good transit planning for the benefit of all citizens would have driven light rail, in this case it was the efforts of the private sector that pushed it through to a very successful conslusion.....which fight is now being refought as line extensions into other parts of the city are being debated. Odd how the same Tea Party types lining up against light rail seem to be the first to support public funding building more roads, especally into areas in which they have a stake.

dave

The City of Jupiter, FL is moving the original 1914 FEC depot back to Jupiter from Tequesta, FL.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/move- ... 91832.html

The article does say that it will be restored for a meeting room and museum but does not say if it will be able to be used as part of a new station complex.

Robert Mann wrote this article for Metro Jacksonville...

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/articl ... -goes-rail

Robert is very involved in rail projects in Florida and goes into much more depth as to the things that are going on in Florida with Rail Passenger service.

More on proposed Florida service, this time in regard to Amtrak running from Jacksonville to Miami. As discussed, this looks like a regional corridor service, but I wonder how many are looking at the idea of reviving the traditional routing for New York-Miami service.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/articl ... ill-happen

Photo link from the above story:

http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/gal ... 57&k=nDieA

Of particular interest are the proposed designs for some of the stations (images from the above photo link):

Saint Augustine:

http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Tra ... huU9-L.jpg

Titusville (existing FEC station):

http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Tra ... FcF-XL.jpg

Daytona Beach looks like a design for a "modern" station from 1955:

http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Tra ... erU-X2.jpg

The proposal at Stuart recalls FEC's traditional wooden stations:

http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Tra ... 3sM-X2.jpg

Cocoa and Fort Pierce base their proposals on existing stations, as do Vero Beach and Saint Augustine:

http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Tra ... a8J-X2.jpg

http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Tra ... HnB-X2.jpg

An important desire from posters and readers here, one that hasn't really been stated because it's one that's so obvious to us, is that a railroad station should feel like a railroad station, not feel like a convention center or a shopping mall. Many persons will not feel that way; they will claim a modern station should be modern. I guess there's logic to that, but I have to consider myself in the traditionalist school.

Despite this, it may be worthwhile to look at what's up for some modern stations, both here and elsewhere:

We'll open with the one big rail project on the drawing boards, the ambitious California high speed project. Controversial it may be, but it also, at this stage, suggests what modern rail travel could look like in a not-too-distant future, including station architecture:

Interior of a typical design:

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/images/ ... -small.jpg

Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco, cross section; this is what is replacing the former Key System terminal in that city.

http://www.socketsite.com/Transbay%20Tr ... ection.jpg

Platform view:

http://www.socketsite.com/CA%20High%20Speed%20Train.jpg

Anaheim:

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/asset ... dcbe85.pdf

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blo ... s-new-high

Elements of these designs can be found in steel and glass in other parts of the world; something like this seems to be the new international style in railroad stations.

China:

http://inhabitat.com/naturally-daylit-g ... d-network/

Belgium:

http://inhabitat.com/calatravas-high-sp ... -in-liege/

Interestingly, the Japanese, who pioneered modern high speed operations in the 1960s, tend to design much more modest station structures for their heavily used rail lines:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CKlp--MhSA0/T ... _train.jpg

At the same time, some of these can be, well, interesting, or at least innovative, as is this one, largely of plywood, in Hoshakuji, which is about 80 miles north of Tokyo:

http://www.architonic.com/aisht/hoshaku ... es/5100359

A collection of other notable stations, some old, some quite new:

http://thewondrous.com/the-most-scenic- ... the-world/

I have to admit, I'm a fan of the older stations, and suspect most of us here are, too. Why else would we be on a site called Railway Preservation News? At the same time, it is possible to build new buildings, including stations, that "feel" old. One example that does this for me is a combination of an old station and a new section in Martinsburg, W.Va., on the former B&O line:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinsbur ... ak_station)

http://www.tomschererphotography.com/ke ... &k=hc8rMTs

http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=1197

http://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=3364

We like old-feeling trains, too. Interestingly, a privately-owned railroad in Japan went in for this, with a train designed with what its architect an "outmoded future" theme. Six equipment sets, only a 36 car order, running on an apparent dedicated airport shuttle service, and on Japan's 3'6" gauge, but take a look at it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nankai_50000_series

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nanka ... ries01.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nanka ... 4s2880.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/71834822@N ... 0%20series

http://www.uraken.net/rail/chiho/nankai/50000.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m95m0VyOB3A&feature=fvsr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnOqimFr ... re=related

Don't you wish we would build something retro like this for ourselves?

Someone thinks their conductors look better than ours, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdmiQoa- ... ure=relmfu

Have fun.

As someone who has carefully researched and designed a reconstruction of an 1870 Central Pacific Railroad depot, and who clearly has a strong appreciation for historic railroad architecture, I must ask, why would you possibly want to create an imitation of an early 20th Century imitation of Roman architecture for a project that is about NEW infrastructure?

The choices people make about architecture are symbolic and associative. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, most railroad architecture was extremely utilitarian. The depots of this era illustrated form following function with a light application of then-popular styles. A number of high-profile structures were designed by architects to command respect and create desirable associations. These terminals and major stations were well-designed and built to last.

People tend to think of trains as outmoded. The new high-speed projects have gone out of their way to promote themselves as high-tech to counter these associations (even though the HSR has been around elsewhere for a long time). This in turn equals "high-tech" architecture.

I'll be honest with you, I do not like much of the stuff I've seen proposed, but largely because it has been done by less talented architects (or more likely engineers), not because of its "style."

These new HSR stations are major public investments that will be urban landmarks for a long time to come. They should be built to the highest standards of contemporary design. Unfortunately, I do not think that will happen. Despite that there is plenty of evidence that contemporary railroad architecture could be just as compelling as it was when Cincinnati Union Terminal was built in 1933 (an unmistakably modern building).
Lisbon

London Waterloo