(rshsdepot) Albuquerque, NM

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From the 12/16/05 edition of the Albuquerque Journal.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
 
 
 
'This Place is a Dump' ; Train Ride to  L.A. Shows Albuquerque Depot Doesn't 
Measure Up to Other Amtrak Stops "I'M  Sittin' in the Railroad Station, Got a 
Ticket for My Destination" -- Paul  Simon

By TOBY SMITH  Journal Staff Writer  
I'm standing in Albuquerque's tiny, scruffy Amtrak ticket office because  
there aren't enough chairs. There's no soap in the restroom and the single  
commode this day has unleashed a sizable flood. Meanwhile, the handicap  restroom, 
so beset by woes, is closed.  
In the ticket office waiting room, the grim peephole windows seem more  
appropriate for a jail cell, and the air fits a bayou.  
"This place is a dump," admits Amtrak station agent Marvin Pendergrass. "We  
don't even know when a train arrives."  
My destination on this Thanksgiving holiday weekend is Los Angeles. The  
purpose? To learn whether Albuquerque, which owns a long and glorious rail  travel 
history, is alone in sticking its passenger train headquarters in  something 
resembling a storage shed.  
My trip will reveal that Amtrak has given up completely on some stations.  
Others, like Albuquerque's, struggle mightily to survive. And a few  
well-appointed depots still make train travel a wonderful way to go.  
Banished to a box  
In truth, Albuquerque's Amtrak office on First Street once was a storage  
shed. On the back of the gray stucco block- house, one of the last buildings  
standing that was connected to the legendary Alvarado Hotel, are these faded  
words: "Indian Store Room."  
The Indians are still around, selling silver and turquoise jewelry on the  
station's platform, 30 hard yards east. Close by the platform rises the nifty,  
partially completed Alvarado Transportation Center. In a few months, Greyhound 
 buses, a light rail commuter line and a Downtown tourist train will arrive 
to  join the center's city bus hub, already in place.  
Amtrak passengers will be shut out of the new complex, banished to the office 
 the railroad has used since 1993, when the original station burned down.  
Things have been worse. Pendergrass says that for awhile after the '93 fire  
Amtrak sold tickets in the parking lot from the cab of a pickup.  
But why are things the way they are today?  
Simply, the city and Amtrak haven't been able come to terms. Amtrak blames  
the city; Albuquerque faults Amtrak.  
The city owns the aged ticket office, lets Amtrak use it rent- free and has  
no intention of moving it. An Amtrak spokesman says the railroad had a deal 
with  the city's old Urban Council to move into the new transportation center, 
but the  city reneged.  
A representative for the city says Amtrak never got on board, likely for  
financial reasons.  
"It just breaks my heart what is happening to Amtrak," says Mayor Martin  
Chvez. "But they don't have penny one."  
Chvez says he walked Amtrak officials through the new transportation facility 
 three years ago or so, and they were interested. But nothing happened.  
"We can't carry their burden. Look, Greyhound donated land to the city and  
gave us $1 million to be in that complex."  
Marc Magliari, a director of media relations for Amtrak, says Albuquerque  
reneged. "They were going to give us room, but then decided not to. I can't tell 
 you exactly why."  
To outsiders, the separation is painful. "It's a travesty to know your big,  
beautiful transportation center won't have Amtrak in it," says Marty Soholt, 
who  lives in Mantua, Utah. Like me, Soholt will travel to L.A. this night on 
the  Southwest Chief, which originates in Chicago.  
Railroad lifers like Soholt, 52, call Amtrak's Albuquerque ticket office an  
"Amshack." Indeed, Amshacks dot the nation these days as the railroad 
recinches  its tourniquettight belt. Small, makeshift structures for the most part, 
often  unstaffed, Amshacks reflect the railroad's downsizing.  
"Most of the nicer stations are not nicer because of Amtrak," Soholt says.  
It's "because the community that they're in restored them."  
Gallup's station is clearly that way. The original building was designed by  
the remarkable architect Mary Jane Colter, and opened in 1923. Thanks to the  
city of Gallup, the historic depot has been partially refurbished, and Indians 
 still dance there in the summer. Up the track at Winslow, Ariz., La Posada, 
once  a glittering Colter- designed Harvey House, which stands alongside the 
Winslow  station, is being privately restored as an upscale hotel and 
restaurant.  
You can still get off a train at the historic California stations of Barstow  
and San Bernardino, but you have to tell a ticket agent ahead of time. Amtrak 
 has pretty much abandoned those two depots, both architectural marvels.  
A community has to make the first step to reunite the two, says Soholt.  
"People in cities where Amtrak is need to understand that Amtrak is not a  
profitable concern."  
Where is the  
welcome mat?  
The Southwest Chief finally pulls into Albuquerque 2{ hours late. The delay,  
passengers learn, is because the engine struck a shopping cart someone placed 
on  the tracks north of the city.  
In Amtrak's 34 years of existence, money has poured out of the railroad like  
Victoria Falls. Earlier this year, only after Congress came up with $1.2 
billion  was Amtrak able to chug onward. Last month, Amtrak's board of directors 
fired  the president of the railroad, transit system genius David Gunn, for 
lack of  "vision."  
Mayor Chvez says he doubts "we'll have passenger service in New Mexico in two 
 years."  
In the Southwest Chief's lounge car this night, three passengers have  
squeezed around a small table. Guillermo Reyes, 56, is a probation officer;  Eugenia 
Mendez, 63, a retired schoolteacher; Roberto Blanco, 49, a restaurateur.   
The three act like old friends, but met only hours before on Albuquerque's  
station platform. All are heading back to Los Angeles, after spending a few 
days  visiting New Mexico, where they saw relatives or did business.  
Quickly the three find a common concern: the unpleasantness of boarding a  
train in Albuquerque, which can only be done through the back door of a dimly  
lighted baggage room in the Amtrak ticket  
No room at the in-bounds office.  
No room at the in-bounds Mendez: "I've seen a lot of changes in Albuquerque  
since 1987, but the station is always under construction. It never changes."  
Reyes: "It's not a very attractive place." Blanco: "Did you notice everyone 
was  sitting on the floor waiting?" Mendez: "You couldn't get through it. Not  
people-friendly at all." Blanco: "After that place, you almost don't want to 
get  on a train." Reyes: And the smell in there ... what was that?" Mendez: "Not 
 green chile ..." "We want Amtrak to be in Albuquerque," says Ed Adams, the  
city's chief operating officer. "We've tried to help them find another place,  
but they've never responded."  
Amtrak's Magliari explains the railroad's split with the city this way: "Our  
philosophy is like the airlines'. A city provides a facility, and we provide 
the  trains. We want to be where everybody else is, but at a cost we can 
afford."  
Magliari says that across the nation transportation modes share space in the  
same venues.  
A handsome, red brick building, erected in 1925, houses Flagstaff's train  
station.  
In 1994, that city bought the station from the Burlington Northern and Santa  
Fe Railway. Major renovations were done by the city, including adding a  
visitor's center. Amtrak had a ticket office in the old station and continues to  
have one in the new building, paying a modest monthly lease to be there. 
Amtrak  isn't merely a tenant. The passenger train service runs a shuttle that 
takes  visitors to Phoenix and the Grand Canyon.  
"Amtrak's part of things here," says Sharlene Fouser, who supervises the  
station's new visitor's center. "We're glad to have them."  
Finishing with  
a flourish  
Like a lot of railroad stations, mammoth Union Station in Los Angeles has  
experienced the peaks and valleys of American rail travel. Built in 1939 as the  
last large metropolitan passenger terminal in the United States, and designed 
in  part by Colter, Union Station clearly reached its zenith in 1950. That's 
the  year the movie "Union Station," starring William Holden and filmed mostly 
in the  station, appeared. Soon after, everyone discovered air travel and the 
downtown  station with the tall, white clock tower out front, grew deserted. 
Only after  Amtrak came along in May 1971 did Union Station experience a 
rebirth.  
Owned by a private development corporation, Union Station today is a busy  
place. Commuter lines to other parts of Southern California feed into the  
station. Twenty-eight Amtrak trains depart or arrive daily. The station's  terrazzo 
floors and muraled ceilings gleam. A restaurant in the waiting room  features 
linen tablecloths and a menu that offers champagne for $280 a bottle.  
There's a cozy bar with Art Deco details and a wonderful courtyard trimmed by 
 rose gardens and shaded by jacaranda trees.  
Eddie Sandoval, an Amtrak red cap who carts travelers to and from trains, has 
 worked at Union Station for 17 years. "I like the people; I like to help 
them,"  he says. "I can't imagine Amtrak not being here. This is home."  
Home for me is Albuquerque, where the Amtrak station awaits my arrival. The  
truth? I'm in no big hurry to get there.

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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