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Poughkeepsie (Metro-North station)
Encyclopedia
The Poughkeepsie Metro-North Railroad
station serves Poughkeepsie, New York
and surrounding areas as the north end of the Hudson Line
. It is also served by many Amtrak
trains, which continue north to Albany and points beyond, and south to New York City
's Pennsylvania Station
. Trains leave for New York every hour on weekdays, and about every 25 minutes during rush hour
. It is 73.5 miles (118 km) from Grand Central Terminal
and travel time to Grand Central is about one hour, 46 minutes.
Poughkeepsie is 8.5 miles (13.7 km) from New Hamburg
, the next station to the south. This is the longest distance between stations on the Hudson Line, the longest on any Metro-North main line, and the third longest on the entire system.
Built in 1918, the main station building is meant to be a much smaller version of Grand Central. It was a source of civic pride when it opened. In 1976 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places
; it and Philipse Manor
are the only Hudson Line stations outside Manhattan to be so recognized.
The station is a four story building built into a rockface, with the bottom two levels given over to the tracks and the top two accounted for by the main waiting room, a two story brick-faced building. Its five-bay
facade
features sculptured masonry
designs over the five high arched windows. To the west, a 420x15-foot (128x5 m) steel-frame overhead walkway
provides access to the tracks via stairs and elevators. Today it continues westward to provides access to the adjacent parking garage. At the time of the station's construction, it served the businesses along Main Street.
The waiting room, modeled on Grand Central Terminal
, is a high gallery lit during daylight by the windows and the three original chandelier
s. The 14 benches within are also original finished chestnut
pieces. The walls are paneled
in wood to eight feet (240 cm), after which the carved stone shows all the way to the cornice
. More original woodwork, the stained walnut
rafter
s, is present in the ceiling, possibly modeled after a similar design in San Miniato al Monte, an 11th-century church in Florence, Italy.
Amenities include bathroom
s (also modernized), a concession stand, as well as a ticket counter selling Metro-North tickets alongside two vending machine
s which also sell MetroCards; Amtrak tickets are available only by Quik-Trak machine. The northernmost MTA Police
substation is adjacent to the station as well. As of August 2006, daily commuter ridership was 1,633 and there were 1,101 parking spots.
There are five tracks at the platform level, enough to accommodate Amtrak and Metro-North stops simultaneously, although only four are regularly used. The fourth and easternmost has a lower speed limit and is used mainly for non-revenue maintenance trains or those experiencing difficulties.
In the late 1960s the North-South Arterial (US 9) was built and elevated immediately to the station's east, somewhat isolating it from the rest of the city. Traffic going along the expressway gets a good view of the station, and it and the nearby steeple Church of the Holy Comforter
have become landmarks to travelers passing through the city.
-bound trains. The east one is an island platform between Tracks 1 and 3 for trains in either direction.
The Hudson Line has four tracks here. Track 5, east of the east platform but not next to it, is not used by trains that stop here.
's Water Level Route worked its way up the Hudson River
. For its first two years it was the end of the line, but even after it was completed all the way to Albany
, it remained the most important intermediate stop. Many local industries, particularly the carpet mills and shoe factories in the city, used the rail facilities to get their products to market. The concentration of industry around a major rail stop also led to the rise of banking and finance within the city as well.
In 1888, with the completion of the nearby Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge providing east-west rail service across the Hudson, Poughkeepsie became even more important to regional rail transportation. When it came time for a third station to be built on the site, the firm of Warren & Wetmore was hired to design a station that would impress travelers and communicate the city's confidence and cosmopolitan aspirations. They chose to model it on Grand Central, another successful design of theirs.
After five years of design and construction, the station was opened on February 18, 1918. The city's main newspaper, then the Poughkeepsie Eagle (now the Poughkeepsie Journal
) was unstinting in its praise:
The building has remained largely intact since then, despite declines in passenger rail use and the demise of the New York Central. It has since transitioned, under the auspices of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority
, from being a station for primarily intercity rail to the commuter services of Metro-North. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places
in 1976. Until April 4, 2009, the southbound Lake Shore Limited (Train 48) stopped at this station, as well as at Hudson
, and Rhinecliff-Kingston
stations. On November 8, 2010, Lake Shore Limited service to this station was restored in both directions, but not at Rhinecliff-Kingston or Hudson.
from the station to Main Street and a large parking garage to serve commuters
(many of whom come from points north and west). Since the 1990s, there have been rumors and plans to expand the Hudson Line north to Rhinecliff
(or even further to Rensselaer
). Local property owners have objected to this given plans to build stations in Hyde Park
and Staatsburg
though those who do commute via Poughkeepsie are in favor of the plan.
Metro-North Railroad
The Metro-North Commuter Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, or, more commonly, Metro-North, is a suburban commuter rail service that is run and managed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , an authority of New York State. It is the busiest commuter railroad in the United...
station serves Poughkeepsie, New York
Poughkeepsie (city), New York
Poughkeepsie is a city in the state of New York, United States, which serves as the county seat of Dutchess County. Poughkeepsie is located in the Hudson River Valley midway between New York City and Albany...
and surrounding areas as the north end of the Hudson Line
Hudson Line (Metro-North)
Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line is a commuter rail line running north from New York City along the east shore of the Hudson River. Metro-North service ends at Poughkeepsie, with Amtrak's Empire Corridor trains continuing north to and beyond Albany...
. It is also served by many Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
trains, which continue north to Albany and points beyond, and south to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Pennsylvania Station
Pennsylvania Station
Pennsylvania Station is a label first applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad to several of its grand passenger terminals.-New York City:...
. Trains leave for New York every hour on weekdays, and about every 25 minutes during rush hour
Rush hour
A rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening, the times during when the most people commute...
. It is 73.5 miles (118 km) from Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
and travel time to Grand Central is about one hour, 46 minutes.
Poughkeepsie is 8.5 miles (13.7 km) from New Hamburg
New Hamburg (Metro-North station)
The New Hamburg Metro-North Railroad station serves the residents of the Wappingers Falls, New York and the Town of Poughkeepsie, New York via the Hudson Line. Trains leave for New York City every hour on weekdays, and about every 25 minutes during rush hour...
, the next station to the south. This is the longest distance between stations on the Hudson Line, the longest on any Metro-North main line, and the third longest on the entire system.
Built in 1918, the main station building is meant to be a much smaller version of Grand Central. It was a source of civic pride when it opened. In 1976 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
; it and Philipse Manor
Philipse Manor (Metro-North station)
The Philipse Manor Metro-North Railroad station serves residents of Sleepy Hollow, New York, United States, via the Hudson Line. Trains leave for New York City every 25 to 35 minutes on weekdays. It is 25.7 miles from Grand Central Terminal and travel time to Grand Central is as little as 38...
are the only Hudson Line stations outside Manhattan to be so recognized.
Building
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
features sculptured masonry
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
designs over the five high arched windows. To the west, a 420x15-foot (128x5 m) steel-frame overhead walkway
Skyway
In an urban setting, a skyway, catwalk, sky bridge, or skywalk is a type of pedway consisting of an enclosed or covered bridge between two buildings. This protects pedestrians from the weather. These skyways are usually owned by businesses, and are therefore not public spaces...
provides access to the tracks via stairs and elevators. Today it continues westward to provides access to the adjacent parking garage. At the time of the station's construction, it served the businesses along Main Street.
Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
, is a high gallery lit during daylight by the windows and the three original chandelier
Chandelier
A chandelier is a branched decorative ceiling-mounted light fixture with two or more arms bearing lights. Chandeliers are often ornate, containing dozens of lamps and complex arrays of glass or crystal prisms to illuminate a room with refracted light...
s. The 14 benches within are also original finished chestnut
Chestnut
Chestnut , some species called chinkapin or chinquapin, is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce.-Species:The chestnut belongs to the...
pieces. The walls are paneled
Panelling
Panelling is a wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials....
in wood to eight feet (240 cm), after which the carved stone shows all the way to the cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
. More original woodwork, the stained walnut
Walnut
Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...
rafter
Rafter
A rafter is one of a series of sloped structural members , that extend from the ridge or hip to the downslope perimeter or eave, designed to support the roof deck and its associated loads.-Design:...
s, is present in the ceiling, possibly modeled after a similar design in San Miniato al Monte, an 11th-century church in Florence, Italy.
Amenities include bathroom
Bathroom
A bathroom is a room for bathing in containing a bathtub and/or a shower and optionally a toilet, a sink/hand basin/wash basin and possibly also a bidet....
s (also modernized), a concession stand, as well as a ticket counter selling Metro-North tickets alongside two vending machine
Vending machine
A vending machine is a machine which dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, consumer products and even gold and gems to customers automatically, after the customer inserts currency or credit into the machine....
s which also sell MetroCards; Amtrak tickets are available only by Quik-Trak machine. The northernmost MTA Police
MTA Police
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police, or MTA Police, is the police agency of New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA...
substation is adjacent to the station as well. As of August 2006, daily commuter ridership was 1,633 and there were 1,101 parking spots.
There are five tracks at the platform level, enough to accommodate Amtrak and Metro-North stops simultaneously, although only four are regularly used. The fourth and easternmost has a lower speed limit and is used mainly for non-revenue maintenance trains or those experiencing difficulties.
In the late 1960s the North-South Arterial (US 9) was built and elevated immediately to the station's east, somewhat isolating it from the rest of the city. Traffic going along the expressway gets a good view of the station, and it and the nearby steeple Church of the Holy Comforter
Church of the Holy Comforter (Poughkeepsie, New York)
The Church of the Holy Comforter, built in 1860, is a Gothic Revival church located on Davies Street, near the train station in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States, a few blocks from the Hudson River...
have become landmarks to travelers passing through the city.
Platforms and tracks
This station has two high-level platforms each six cars long. The west one is a side platform next to Track 2 and generally used by southbound or inbound or ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
-bound trains. The east one is an island platform between Tracks 1 and 3 for trains in either direction.
The Hudson Line has four tracks here. Track 5, east of the east platform but not next to it, is not used by trains that stop here.
History
The first Poughkeepsie station was built in 1850 as what became the New York Central RailroadNew York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...
's Water Level Route worked its way up the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. For its first two years it was the end of the line, but even after it was completed all the way to Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
, it remained the most important intermediate stop. Many local industries, particularly the carpet mills and shoe factories in the city, used the rail facilities to get their products to market. The concentration of industry around a major rail stop also led to the rise of banking and finance within the city as well.
In 1888, with the completion of the nearby Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge providing east-west rail service across the Hudson, Poughkeepsie became even more important to regional rail transportation. When it came time for a third station to be built on the site, the firm of Warren & Wetmore was hired to design a station that would impress travelers and communicate the city's confidence and cosmopolitan aspirations. They chose to model it on Grand Central, another successful design of theirs.
After five years of design and construction, the station was opened on February 18, 1918. The city's main newspaper, then the Poughkeepsie Eagle (now the Poughkeepsie Journal
Poughkeepsie Journal
The Poughkeepsie Journal is a newspaper based in Poughkeepsie, New York owned by the Gannett Company, who bought the paper in 1977. Founded in 1785 , the Journal is the oldest paper in New York state, and is the third-oldest in the nation...
) was unstinting in its praise:
The building has remained largely intact since then, despite declines in passenger rail use and the demise of the New York Central. It has since transitioned, under the auspices of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York)
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York is a public benefit corporation responsible for public transportation in the U.S...
, from being a station for primarily intercity rail to the commuter services of Metro-North. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1976. Until April 4, 2009, the southbound Lake Shore Limited (Train 48) stopped at this station, as well as at Hudson
Hudson (Amtrak station)
The Hudson Amtrak Station is a train station in Hudson, New York. Originally built in 1874 by the New York Central Railroad, it is the oldest continuously operated station in the state. Hudson station serves a total of four different Amtrak trains, all of which have a southern terminus at...
, and Rhinecliff-Kingston
Rhinecliff-Kingston (Amtrak station)
The Rhinecliff–Kingston Amtrak station, commonly and formerly known as simply Rhinecliff, is located in Rhinebeck, New York and serves northern Dutchess County and the nearby Kingston area across the Hudson River. The station has one low-level island platform that serves two tracks...
stations. On November 8, 2010, Lake Shore Limited service to this station was restored in both directions, but not at Rhinecliff-Kingston or Hudson.
Future
A massive restoration in the late 20th century included the reconstruction of the overpassOverpass
An overpass is a bridge, road, railway or similar structure that crosses over another road or railway...
from the station to Main Street and a large parking garage to serve commuters
Commuting
Commuting is regular travel between one's place of residence and place of work or full time study. It sometimes refers to any regular or often repeated traveling between locations when not work related.- History :...
(many of whom come from points north and west). Since the 1990s, there have been rumors and plans to expand the Hudson Line north to Rhinecliff
Rhinecliff-Kingston (Amtrak station)
The Rhinecliff–Kingston Amtrak station, commonly and formerly known as simply Rhinecliff, is located in Rhinebeck, New York and serves northern Dutchess County and the nearby Kingston area across the Hudson River. The station has one low-level island platform that serves two tracks...
(or even further to Rensselaer
Albany-Rensselaer (Amtrak station)
The Albany – Rensselaer Rail Station is a long-distance rail terminal in Rensselaer, New York, located 1.5 miles from downtown Albany across the Hudson River. , the station was Amtrak's tenth-busiest station and by 2010 it had become the ninth-busiest...
). Local property owners have objected to this given plans to build stations in Hyde Park
Hyde Park, New York
Hyde Park is a town located in the northwest part of Dutchess County, New York, United States, just north of the city of Poughkeepsie. The town is most famous for being the hometown of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt....
and Staatsburg
Staatsburg, New York
Staatsburg is a hamlet in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 911 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined...
though those who do commute via Poughkeepsie are in favor of the plan.
Notable places nearby
- Mid-Hudson Children's MuseumMid-Hudson Children's MuseumThe Mid-Hudson Children's Museum is located on North Water Street in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. It has been located in a brick building across from the former Innis Dye Works building, a short walk from the Poughkeepsie station on Metro-North's Hudson Line and right on the Hudson River....
- Mid-Hudson Civic CenterMid-Hudson Civic CenterThe Mid-Hudson Civic Center is a venue in Poughkeepsie, NY, USA consisting of Mair Hall and the McCann Ice Arena . It was built in the 1970s as part of the general attempt at rehabilitation of the central district of the City of Poughkeepsie...
- Poughkeepsie BridgePoughkeepsie BridgeThe Poughkeepsie Bridge is a steel cantilever bridge spanning the Hudson River between Poughkeepsie, New York on the east bank and Highland, New York on the west bank...
- Second Baptist ChurchSecond Baptist Church (Poughkeepsie, New York)The Second Baptist Church in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States, is located at the corner of Vassar and Mill streets. It is a wooden building from the late 1830s in the Greek Revival architectural style, the only remaining church in the city in that style....