Palmetto

As you take the Palmetto from New York City to Savannah, GA, you'll be treated to a unique picture of the American South. Stop along the way to explore the charms of Richmond, VA, and tour the antebellum homes of Charleston, SC. In Savannah, you can wander the 22 squares that dot the city's historic downtown or stroll the beach of nearby Tybee Island. No matter what you decide to do and see, you'll want to return soon to experience more of the South's history and personality.

Amtrak

Philadelphia's famed 30th Street Station was built between 1929 and 1933 by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to replace the Broad Street Station that had become much too congested to support the city's growth. Designed by Alfred Shaw of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, the enormous, eight-story steel frame building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978. It is an example of some of the railroad industry's most monumental construction and is architecturally interesting for its use, adaptation and transformation of the Neoclassical style into a more modern, streamlined Art Deco style. The exterior of the building features typical neoclassical elements such as seventy-one-foot-high Corinthian columns forming impressive porticoes on the east and west facades, rendered in Alabama limestone.

The interior of the station, meanwhile, is notable and unique for both its stylistic and functional elements. The main concourse measures 290 by 135 feet with a 95-foot-high coffered ceiling and beautiful Art Deco chandeliers. It is lined by gilded and ornamented columns that contrast with the more austere, classical look of the façade as well as by five-story-high cathedral-like windows. The floor, made of Tennessee marble, completes the sense of opulence of this impressive room.

Great American Stations

n 1901, the U. S. Senate Park Commission invited master American architect and planner Daniel Burnham to orchestrate a sweeping City Beautiful plan for Washington, D.C., and make it a setting that was both practical and grandly befitting a world capital. Burnham’s work, inspired by that of L’Enfant, would help create the monumental architecture now associated with the National Mall. As part of this work, Burnham designed a Union Station that removed the rail lines from the center of the Mall, which had become a tangle of paths, gardens and buildings, and brought two major railroads, the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio, into one terminal.

Completed in 1908, the station inspires visitors with its exquisitely detailed neoclassical architecture. Although faced with Bethel white granite from Vermont on the exterior and interior, the building’s bones are modern concrete and steel. The front of the station, on Columbus Circle, presents travelers with a soaring vaulted entryway and heroic statuary on its 600-foot length. The 96-foot high Main Hall coffered ceiling shines brilliantly with gold leaf and reflects natural light entering from the large Diocletian windows.

The former Main Concourse, now the heart of the station, lifts its barrel-vaulted glass and coffered plaster ceiling 45 feet above the main floor and stretches 760 feet long. It was once said to be the largest single room in the world. When the building first opened, it also featured a private, secure waiting room for the president and his visitors, as well as a public dining room whose walls were covered in murals modeled after those recently excavated at the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

More than 100,000 visitors pass through Union Station each day, including passengers using Amtrak, Maryland Area Regional Commuter (MARC) rail and Virginia Railway Express (VRE), Metro subway trains and buses, taxis, tourist buses, intercity buses and Capital Bikeshare. The building is also a popular shopping and dining destination for residents of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and the city at large. Behind the station, above the train sheds, stands a parking structure offering approximately 2,500 spaces. The station, bringing all these modes of transportation together, makes it easy for people to move from private automobile to Amtrak to taxi or from commuter rail onto the subway and still have time to buy a meal, a gift, or a cup of coffee on their way.

The Staples Mill Road station is located just north of Richmond in the Henrico County suburbs, and is the busiest Amtrak facility in the Southeast. It opened in Nov. 1975, built to replace the historic, neoclassical Broad Street Station sited about three-and-a-half miles south and adjacent to Richmond’s famous Fan District. The new station facilitated train movements, cutting about 10 minutes from the run times of New York-Florida trains. Following a public open house on Nov. 14, the northbound Silver Star (New York – St. Petersburg/Miami) was the first train to stop at the facility the following day.

Designed by David Volkert and Associates, with Roderick Slater as the main architect, the station consists of a one-story building of buff brick and steel construction with two tracks served by one platform. Walls of windows allow natural light to flood the waiting room, which features built-in bench seating. Minor renovations over the years included the expansion of the parking lot and inclusion of employee parking, as well as the addition of a mechanical department. This station has a waiting room and is staffed by Amtrak employees; Richmond is served by more than a dozen daily trains. Northeast Regional service within Virginia is funded in part through grants made available by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Great American Stations

The brick station in Dillon was constructed in 1905 by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. The station is most recognizable for the town clock that sits at the entrance of the building. The clock, inscribed with the town name, was installed in 2004 as part of the renovations that included installation of a new brick platform. The new park-like entrance with benches and a garden were constructed as a memorial to the former and future mayors of Dillon.

The city of Dillon started out with a mere 87 people, isolated by swamps and rivers that kept this area cut off for years. However, Dillon gained prosperity when its founding father, James W. Dillon, headed a local movement to allow train tracks to run through the town. The original spot for the rail line was a smaller, neighboring town called Little Rock, but its residents thought the line would do more harm than good. So with a stroke of luck, the Wilson Short Cut Railroad (later part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad) was built through Dillon and it turned out to be frequently used, bringing much economic development to this small town.

Great American Stations

The original township of Florence was developed as a railroad terminal at the juncture of three rail lines: the Wilmington & Manchester, the North Eastern and the Cheraw & Darlington. The name for the proposed crossing site was Florence, in honor of Florence Harllee, daughter of the president of the Wilmington & Manchester Railroad W.W. Harllee. When the Wilmington & Manchester line purchased five acres of property in 1853 for the purpose of building a depot, Florence had its small, but official, start.

During the Civil War, Florence’s rails were busy. Troops, artillery and supplies regularly passed through Florence on their way to Richmond, Charleston and Savannah. Wounded Confederate troops traveled by rail to Florence’s Wayside Hospital and captured Union troops were conveyed to town to be garrisoned in the Florence Stockade. Although the war had exacted a heavy toll on the area’s trains, depots and track, all three rail lines were back up and running shortly after the war’s end. By the 1870’s the village had a population of about 700 but, due to ever-expanding railroad activity, an emerging middle class more than doubled the town’s population by the end of the decade. In 1888 the new county of Florence was created. Two years later the City of Florence was chartered and serves as the county seat.

City of Florence

The Amtrak station in Florence was constructed in 1996 by CSX as a replacement for the historic depot that sits right beside it. The old building, constructed in 1910 by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, was once served by six tracks with eight raised concrete platforms. Today, only one passenger track remains in place. Both depots, old and new, are owned by the McLeod Regional Medical Center, though the former is used as office space by the hospital. The current buff brick station is smaller and less grandiose than its historic counterpart, but it has delicate white brackets and well-kept landscaping.

Great American Stations

Williamsburg Township was established and first settled in 1735 by Scots-Irish from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. It was located where the three present-day counties of Williamsburg, Florence, and Clarendon meet, along the confluence of the Lynches River and the Great Pee Dee River in southeastern South Carolina. Back in 1737, the court house grounds, located on Main Street in Kingstree, was designated the parade ground in the original survey of the town of Kingstree. The grounds served as the muster ground for the local militia during colonial and Revolutionary War times.

The Williamsburg County court house, designed by Robert Mills, was built in 1823. Robert Mills, a nationally known architect, was a native of South Carolina. In 1883, the second story of the court house caught fire, but realizing that the thirty-inch walls were fireproof, the building was soon repaired. The court house was enlarged in 1901 with an addition of a substantial fence to give a good park to the town and to keep horses and cattle out of the square.

Williamsburg Township's success was largely attributable to the raising and processing of indigo. From indigo, came wealth and prosperity to the area. Hemp, flax, and holland were other fine quality products introduced in the 1730s. A settlement, existing on Black Mingo (later referred to as Willtown), had a "Meeting House" for dissenters in what later became Williamsburg County. In 1736, the first Williamsburg Presbyterian Meeting House was built. This "Meeting House" was the mother church for a wide area embracing several states.

A History of Kingstree, South Carolina

The current Amtrak stop in Kingstree, a white stuccoed brick building, was built around 1909 by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. It has been renovated several times and currently houses the Williamsburg Hometown Chamber Offices as well as the Amtrak waiting room; it also has a facility previously occupied by a restaurant.

Great American Stations

The Yemassee station consists of a platform with a sheltered area adjacent to the old Charleston and Western Carolina Railroad depot built in 1955. The city purchased the building from CSX and completed the transfer of ownership on September 17, 2010. Community members gathered at the depot on that occasion to celebrate as a representative from CSX presented the deed to Mayor J.L. Goodwin. The town also purchased approximately 0.64 acres of adjoining land.

The Yemassee Revitalization Corporation, a nonprofit organization formed in 2008, planned to revitalize downtown to stimulate the local economy. The group wanted to restore the depot and worked to find funding for the renovation project. In 2011, a British reality show filmed in Yemassee, which resulted in a full cosmetic renovation of the depot’s exterior to include a new gabled roof, siding and a wrap-around porch. In summer 2016 the town received funds that will allow interior improvements to proceed. Work will include installation of a new electrical system and renovation of the restrooms.

Great American Stations

If Savannah’s Trees Could Talk…

they’d tell you about pirates, cotton, and a revolutionary town plan dating to 1733. They’d tell you about a citizenry that treats hospitality as an art form, of a St. Patrick’s Day celebration that defies description, and of a city’s beauty so profound that it stopped even General William Tecumseh Sherman in his tracks.

They’d tell you about a group of women who banded together to protect this historic treasure, inventing the modern preservation movement in the process.

And then those same trees - an urban canopy unequalled in the United States - would offer a more recent story. They’d tell you about things happening on the Coast that are transforming Georgia’s first city into one of the most dynamic and creative economies in the southeast.

City of Savannah

A fine example of mid-century modern architecture, the station is embellished with brightly-colored murals depicting the history of the city and port of Savannah.

The Savannah station is located to the west of the city and slightly south and west of the Savannah River. Constructed in 1962 by the Savannah District Authority, the city's redevelopment agency, the building was meant to replace the former downtown Union Station, which was demolished the following year to make way for an interstate highway exchange.

Designed by architect Frank Pierce Milburn, Savannah Union Station was completed in 1902 at a cost of $150,000. It was an example of Spanish Renaissance and Elizabethan styles, the main feature of which was an octagonal rotunda measuring 80 feet in diameter that served as the general waiting room. Exterior walls were made of pressed brick with granite and terracotta trim.

Originally leased to the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Airline railroads, the new $1.5 million Savannah station was an example of mid-century modern architecture, characterized by clean lines and minimal ornamentation. The building has a flat, cantilevered roof, large porte-cochere supported by square columns with inset geometric designs, and panoramic window walls that allow natural light to flood the interior. The richly textured exterior incorporates orange brick, large limestone blocks and ceramic tile; at the entrance, the tiled wall is accented by a playful mosaic of a steam locomotive. Along the tracks, a deep and long porch shelters passengers from inclement weather and the strong summer sun.

Inside, the waiting room has terrazzo flooring, popular with Modernist designers for its variegated patterns, but also intensely practical since it is hard and durable. Across from the wall of windows is the ticket counter, presided over by a stylized clock high on the wall. Gleaming, streamlined metal letters spell out "Tickets" and "Baggage." Along the perimeter of the room, rows of lights have decorative metal shades with circular cutwork designs.

On the two remaining walls, murals in bright colors by Tattersfield Associates, a Philadelphia-based design firm, depict the history of the city and port of Savannah. The former includes Fort Pulaski, the Forsyth Park fountain and a full portrait of Nathanael Greene, the Revolutionary War commander known for his successful campaigns in defense of the southern colonies. The latter depicts waterfront landmarks such as the Cotton Exchange and Factor's Walk where many of the cotton brokers had offices.

Great American Stations