" Amtrak officals expect the Sandpoint Depot to reopen for passenger use by the end of the year". ( Per the Daily Bee in Bonner County ID) Vernae Graham, Amtrak spokeswoman in Oakland , California. The depot has been on the NRHP since 1973. built for Great Northern in 1916.
This is all we have seen so far. I will keep an eye on it , but I do not think they will start much before spring ... although there is inside work to do . The RR cannot change too much from the orginal design and facade as it is on the NRHP list ... hard to get approval to change anything once you are registered .. Not sure if the recent death has any bearing on the overhaul and reopen... Woman got hit by frt train late at nite waiting for the Amtrak. She was apparently inebriated ....
Bummer. And this will likely effect ability to railfan in that vicinity as well, because RR folks will now be paranoid.
Wait and see , according to news paper, Amtrak , who is leasing the station from BNSF , will be responsible for the rehab, apparently they have nearly a million dollars for the station but need to get all the permissions lined up and transfer the funds to Amtrak. They figure they will be starting in June and plan to be done by the end of the year. I will be posting fotos in this thread as I can get pretty good fotos from the highway as it runs just in front of the building. Does not seem to be a lot of intrest but still , it will provide me a time out of the house each day once they start in earnest on the bldg. We'll see what kind of boundries they put up to keep people from the active track. My guess is a chain link fence from the last concrete over pass ( to the east ) to the east side of the platform and then around the rest of the building (west ) , with a narrow opening for passenger loading . the engr will have to hit the spot nearly perfect , just a guess mind you , we'll see in the comming months ...
You mean the road into the depot ? That was all done in conjunction wilth the by pass section and had to be as part of the enviromental impact changes . Here is a link to a airial map of the bypass and the depot. http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=48.274432&lon=-116.5452432&z=18&l=0&m=b You can zoom in very nice as it was done to be able to zoom . Also is some history and etc. on the page as well. According to other info the city will over see the restoration which is at odds with the Amtrak article somewhat , so not sure who is the general on this one but rest asurde, a LOT of people in this town will be watching very closely as this goes forward .. There is also some great pax train videos on that same page ..
Was wondering mostly about the bypass. That was a mess when I was there last, in 2010. Access to the depot stank and if there was heavy traffic, it was easy to see how anyone could get into an accident, while trying to get in and out.
