Fort Madison, IA depot move moves ahead

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pebbleworm

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The long drawn out saga of the Fort Madison, Iowa station moving from the 1960's Santa Fe station in Shopton back downtown is moving ahead again, with the OK given to build a new platform at the old Santa Fe depot downtown:

http://tristatesradio.com/post/fm-depot-platform-be-built

This can only be a good thing for the town, and hopefully passengers. There is a museum in the depot complex that hopefully will open at train times, a nice park and river view, and if nothing else, downtown Fort Madison is a pretty little town. It would be nice if the move brought some new residents and businesses to town-it worked for Creston Iowa once:

http://www.crestonnewsadvertiser.com/2013/09/18/gits-closing-its-doors/ap56g0n/?page=2

but that business is now closing. At the very least, the local real estate ladies should leave some listing sheets in the depot. A brick Victorian you can buy by writing a check should be attractive to someone!
 
It would be nice if the move brought some new residents and businesses to town-it worked for Creston Iowa once:

http://www.crestonnewsadvertiser.com/2013/09/18/gits-closing-its-doors/ap56g0n/?page=2

but that business is now closing. At the very least, the local real estate ladies should leave some listing sheets in the depot. A brick Victorian you can buy by writing a check should be attractive to someone!
Great story about Creston and GITS. It is too bad GITS is closing. In a sign of the times, jobs going to Mexico and China... :(

Don't even get me started... :angry2:

:rolleyes:

Still an almost 70 year run for being nice to a stranded traveler was a pretty nice 'payback' to the townspeople..
 
A quote from your link:

He says the city initially wanted to build a 500' long platform.

Smith says the agreement calls for a 1000' long platform to address accessibility concerns.

"What that will do is allow the Amtrak trains to stop once," says Smith. "The crew and the passengers can disembark and embark all in one place."
It doesn't say who had "accessibility concerns". If accessiblity it means what I think it does, I'm not sure how the longer platform helps. Single spotting might help time keeping, but it means on average twice as long a walk or ride from the station to train door.

FWIW, the platform at nearby MTP (Mt. Pleasant) is two blocks long. Sometimes the CZ double spots and sometimes not, in which case it is a long walk to or from the last sleeper.

I agree this will be a nice addition to Ft. Madison. It's always sort of depressing to drive by the museum, knowing that the actual station is in a rail yard in the middle of nowhere.
 
I may be mistaken, but I believe the FRA platform regulations (the ones frequently mentioned here regarding platform height) require platforms be long enough to serve all cars of all trains that regularly serve that station. (Or something to that effect, I may not have phrased that well.)
 
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