Passenger Trains > New Buffalo (NY) Exchange Street Station Opens

The new downtown Buffalo (NY) Exchange Street Station opened on Sunday with the arrival/departure of train #64 on route from Niagara Falls to New York City.

The new facility is at the same site on Exchange Street as the previous 1952-era New York Central station, which had fallen in significant dis-repair in recent years.

The new station features a large, bright, waiting room and a new high-level boarding platform that can accomodate at least an eight car train.

The station will be staffed from 3:30am to 11:00pm seven days a week. Limited free parking is available, with a long-term parking garage located just across the street.

The station is within easy walking distance of the Buffalo light rail line on Main Street; the popular waterfront Canalside area; the Harborcenter Hockey Center and the under re-developement Seneca Tower.

Media coverage of the opening - https://spectrumlocalnews.com/share/nys/buffalo/news/2020/11/09/exchange-street-amtrak-station-officially-opens-in-downtown-buffalo?cid=share_clip

 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/20 14:01 by mbutte.

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More interior views, including two large photo murals of the original New York Central Exchange Street Station and the 1952 version.

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Views of the new high-level platform.

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More views...

Additional photos at: https://www.facebook.com/esparail/posts/3646738508705938



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/20 14:01 by mbutte.

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#64 arriving on time into the new station.

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To bad we can't have grand opening ceremonies with a lot of people, music, food, etc.  

Do you mean that this is really a MANNED station, with real ticket agents selling tickets, every day, 16 hours per day?    Does President Finley know about this extravagance?   (Or is the State of NY paying their salaries?)

Nice looking station!
Sorry I couldn't find anything to complain about...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/20 15:48 by MojaveBill.

Really, really nice.   Especially for a newly built station, and compared to most of the crap that passes for new train stations these days.

MEKoch Wrote:
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> Do you mean that this is really a MANNED station, with real ticket agents selling tickets, everyday, 16 hours per day?    Does President Finley
> know about this extravagance?   (Or is the State of NY paying their salaries?)

Indeed, the new station was fully funded by New York State and all the trains that serve downtown Buffalo are state-supported trains, so it is safe to assume that the state is absorbing the additional station staffing expenses.

Looks good and I was surprised to see a second track since the last time I was there that track had been pulled up. Some years ago, in a very cold mid winter day, I was aboard the Maple Leaf heading for Toronto and had just left Buffalo/Depew Station when our engine conked out and we coasted into the Exchange Street Station. We sat for some time without heat and the crew left. After an hour or two, a replacement engine passed us up to the head end and we left. It turns out that the replacement engine had previously been dropped off at Depew after getting repaired from the same problem our engine had died from and the engineer had taken a cab from our train and picked it up using that second track to get around the dead train. I have not been on the Maple Leaf for several years but at that time the new station at Niagara Falls had not been opened and the track approaching it was a real mess, hopefully all that has been cleared up.

Thanks for the nice coverage. Seems like a good place to locate the depot. Sad to be in the shadow of all that concrete.

MojaveBill Wrote:
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> Nice looking station!
> Sorry I couldn't find anything to complain
> about...

I agree, but I did find one thing: why do the station signs on the platform not include the word “Buffalo” anywhere? “Exchange street station” hasn’t exactly worked its way into the vernacular like Grand Central...

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/20 13:46 by pennengineer.

Seems to be rapid transit nomenclature, like Exchange Place on PATH, one of several stations in Jersey City.

Then some day, they'll change the naming rights to a bank or university, and change the name again.

Posted from Android

It's a shame they had to destroy a historic and exemplary mid-century structure. People should have fought to have it listed...

(Don't worry, just kidding. It was hideous and depressing. A reminder of the attitudes about the future of passenger rail, and what they thought their customers deserved. I'm glad it's gone)...

Great new station -- and I most love the attention to railroad detail.  The platform canopies could easily be from any of several upstate New York Central stations, but they are indeed new.  It gives the station a proper air of the golden era of trains.  The historic photo murals (thanks to the various rail historical societies) are awesome. 

Several years ago I had occasion to detrain at Exchange Street at the closed former building.  I did find it an easy walk up to the Main Street area (now even easier with the dedicated and lighted walkway) with its light rail, restaurants, and hotels. 

Well done New York State. 

 

So the Lake Shore Limited stops here now?

Spongebob-Trainguy Wrote:
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> So the Lake Shore Limited stops here now?

No, it has to stop at Depew because this station is north of the switch it takes west to Chicago.

Now if the LSL ran through Canada and Detroit . . . 

It was a real battle to decide to leave it at Exchange St.   Took a couple years. 

I wasn't aware this was set up for high platform, and I'm wondering if the second track is the 'bypass' to get what freight does go up that way around it, if there still is any.   You don't run into any heavy freight traffic until you hit the International Bridge crossing.   The bid documents on the station indicated that contractors weren't allowed anywhere near CSX property, so if anybody knows more about that second track addition, please post.  Before this station it sure wasn't there.

Depew still is amazingly popular, partly because it's a very short taxi run to the airport and free parking there at Depew.   It's one of the few spots where you really can train in one direction and fly the other and pull it off for any extended trip.   

The other thing "new" in the area is Niagara Falls, there really was a solid movement to move Canadian Customs over to the US side to help the delay issues getting across the border, then COVID hit, and that stopped that.   But the station was constructed to have the full customs capability that the Niagara Falls ONT station doesn't really have.   There have been lots of new concepts about cross-border rail passenger traffic that just stopped cold.

Buffalo has a history of never, ever, ever really having a single city 'station', due to the track configurations and the position of the downtown north of the east-west main lines.  NYC sure tried to force it.   Other lines to Buffalo ran into some rather odd routing situations trying to get to what were multiple 'Buffalo' stations downtown.

Too bad NFTA bus service at Depew has gotten so poor.