This is a review of the Amtrak station in Schenectady, with some pointers.
The station is a rather sad 1970s "ministation" that neither replicated the glory of the old-fashioned train station nor replaced it with anything like the slipstreamed practical structure that it was supposed to be. There's a small waiting room that's kept clean but has no amenities at all (if you need to use the restroom, you have to get the key from the station agent at the window) including no place to plug in electronics.
There's one of the scanner-ticket-issuing machines inside the waiting room (if you've already bought on-line), and one agent there from 830 AM on to late afternoon. The agent, fwiw, is pleasant and business-like.
(Unfortunately, Amtrak is still stuck in the ticket-punching era and you have to go through the elaborate charade of scanning your ticket-to-get-a-ticket to get a ticket that's then punched and exchanged for a seat check on the train. Yoo hoo, Amtrak, portable scanners? Invented a few decades ago. Look into it.)
The platform and stairs are kind of a horror, particularly the peeling walkway up to the platform. The elevator was too creepy for me to contemplate going in, but it was apparently in operation.
The platforms have old-fashioned benches and while offering a covering from the rain offer no other protection against the elements. You can board from a stairway without going through the waiting room (see the "Train Platform" door window to the left of the main entrance). If you have somebody dropping you off, I'd recommend just staying in the car until you hear the train approaching.
If you need sustenance and forgot to bring any with you, there's a Burger King across the street that keeps hours compatible with the train schedule.
Parking is immediately in front of the station, with the entrance off Erie Blvd. There are some confusing "Do Not Enter" signs that don't actually apply to the main entrance. If you pull straight in front of the station, the pick-up/dropoff parking is to your left; other spots in the lot are for commuter parking for downtown Schenectady, and there's a self-service long-term parking option (which I haven't availed myself of so can't explain how it works...)
I'm grateful the train service still comes through here, and it is more convenient than the "Albany" station over in Rensselaer, but the latter is a nicer station across the board. Amtrak needs to get Schenectady's updated station project off the drawing boards and under construction.
We no longer have interurban trolleys, of course, which used to connect all the cities of the region, but the main line of the old New York Central pretty much parallels the Thruway and it's amazing there hasn't been an effort to use the tracks for a local commuter rail system. Stops at the Dunes/Washington Extension complex and the State office complex could easily be added, and something reasonably close to downtown Albany with a shuttle could be sited. But that may require too much foresight about transportation planning, given that the growth along the Northway seems to have dominated what passes for "regional planning" hereabouts. The reconstruction and widening of the Kosciusko bridge over the Mohawk on I-87 will probably cost about what it would take to retrofit this line into a short regional commuter system but will only have mild amelioration of the traffic problem there, and that too will be wiped out with further growth in Saratoga County (which is also served by three train stations).
In any event, I doubt the current sad state of the Schenectady Amtrak station is going to build any groundswell towards rail. read more
