This is one of those grand old railway stations that is still in daily use and is still in remarkably good repair. Prior to the insanity I used to take the Amtrak from Portland to Seattle on a regular basis. Now that Seattle has become too dangerous to visit, Centralia became my preferred get-away from the big city.
I've been traveling Amtrak for many decades and the staff has always been great. So I can't really single out the staff in Centralia as being anything special.... they are just similarly great as compared to their peers at other stations and rail crews.
I'm really happy that the Cascades run is still getting priority with Amtrak along with the Coast Starliner and the once daily run to B.C. As for Centralia specifically, even though there is usually only a couple of people getting on or off at this station stop, I'm really happy that Amtrak is keeping this depot in top notch condition.
One sad note is the increasingly dire situation with homeless and their aggressive panhandling. Also, there is always recent evidence of car break-ins in the station parking lots so you/your vehicle are not as safe as it should be. This reality is certainly a deterrent to any sort of tourism to the area. read more