Richmond Main Street Station, officially the Main Street Station and Trainshed, is a historic railroad station and office building in Richmond, Virginia. It was built in 1901, and is served by Amtrak. It is also an intermodal station with Richmond's city transit bus services, which are performed by Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC). The station is colloquially known by residents as The Clock Tower. It was listed to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and in 1976 was made a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Main Street Station serves as a secondary train station for Richmond providing limited Amtrak service directly to downtown Richmond. Several Amtrak trains serving the Richmond metropolitan area only stop at the area's primary rail station, Staples Mill Road which is located five miles to the north in Henrico County.
The ornate Main Street Station was designed by the Philadelphia firm of Wilson, Harris, and Richards in the Second Renaissance Revival style.[6] Since its 1901 construction, the building's roof has featured Conosera tile produced by Ludowici.[7] In 1959, Seaboard shifted its Richmond passenger service to Broad Street Station (now the Science Museum of Virginia), ending service to the north platform and across the James River. The C&O maintained offices in the upper floors, and its passenger service continued at Main Street Station until Amtrak took over in 1971.
Amtrak took over most intercity passenger train service in the United States on May 1, 1971, including trains to Main Street Station. In 1972, Hurricane Agnes caused the James River to flood the station. The damage was so severe that in 1975, Amtrak moved its Richmond stops to Richmond Staples Mill Road, a much smaller suburban station in Henrico County, five miles north of downtown. To make matters worse, the station was damaged by fires in 1976 and 1983.[11][12]
Service restoration
Main Street Station reopened to Amtrak service on December 18, 2003, following renovations.[13]
In 2018, the station became a stop on the GRTC Bus Rapid Transit's Broad and Main Street Line. There are also plans for Main Street Station to become an intermodal station with Richmond's city bus services operated by GRTC, a public service company owned jointly by the City of Richmond and Chesterfield County.[14]
Local officials hoped to increase the number of trains stopping at Main Street Station by extending services that otherwise terminate at Staples Mill station in suburban Henrico County. The completion of a bypass around Acca Yard in March 2019 was a step in this direction, although the first additional service that it enabled—a second Northeast Regional round trip to Norfolk—did not serve Main Street Station.[15]
On September 27, 2021, two Amtrak trains—one northbound in the morning and the other southbound in the evening—were extended from Staples Mill to Main Street Station as the first part of Virginia's multi-billion dollar rail expansion program.[16]
Proposed future
The 2017 Draft Environmental Impact Report of the DC2RVA project recommended routing all trains that serve Staples Mill station through Main Street Station, while maintaining full service to Staples Mill. Other considered alternatives had involved closing one of the two stations, or replacing both with a single station at Boulevard or Broad Street.[17]
^"Executive Summary". Washington, D.C. to Richmond Southeast High Speed Rail Project(PDF). TIER II DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT. Federal Railroad Administration and Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation. September 2017. pp. 63, 64. Archived from the original(PDF) on October 8, 2017.
