Carbondale station


Carbondale station is an Amtrak intercity train station in Carbondale, Illinois, United States. The southern terminus of Amtrak's routes, it is also served by the. Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach service between Carbondale and St. Louis, Missouri connects with the City of New Orleans. Carbondale is the southernmost Amtrak station in Illinois.

History

service to Carbondale began on July 4, 1854, with a wooden passenger depot. A second station was built in 1903 as part of a series of improvements by the railroad in Carbondale, which included a roundhouse, office buildings, and a bandstand and park. Railway architect Francis T. Bacon designed the brick and limestone station.
Amtrak took over intercity passenger service from most private railroads, including the IC, on May 1, 1971. Initial Amtrak service to Carbondale was by the Chicago-New Orleans and Chicago-Carbondale, each with one daily round trip. The City of New Orleans name returned in 1981. That year, Amtrak constructed a new station of standard design some to the south. The Shawnee was merged with the Chicago-Champaign on January 12, 1986, keeping the Carbondale terminus but the Illini name. A second daily Illini round trip, the Saluki, was added on added on October 30, 2006. The Saluki was named for the mascot of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
The town purchased the former station from the IC in 1989; the exterior was restored in 1992, followed by the interior in 1996. The depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 9, 2002 as the Illinois Central Railroad Passenger Depot. The building now houses the offices of Carbondale Main Street and Carbondale Chamber of Commerce.
In November 2019, the city was awarded a $14 million federal grant to construct the Southern Illinois Multi-Modal Station, which will replace the 1981-built station with a large train and bus depot on the same site.