Pittsfield's Big NEW Station is comming along!

[P40Power]

Wow I took a ride down to downtown Pittsfield to see the new BRTA Bus/ Amtrak station comming up, and everytime I go down there Im amazed on how big the thing is. Its gotta be three stories high from track level to street level. They seem to be putting some intresting architecture on the side of the building facing the tracks and the ol lil Amshack (I wanna get my hands on one of the signs from the Amshack as a little momento!). The building isnt going to be overly spacious since the cramped little corner that they are building it on, but its still massive compared to the Amshack. Of course it probably wont rival the beautiful former Union Station across the tracks and a parking lot from the new station, but hey its an improvement. Ill have to take some pictures of the new place going up with my digital camera (hopefully they wont think Im terrorist scouting) and show them to ya!

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

have to take some pictures of the new place going up with my digital camera (hopefully they wont think Im terrorist scouting) and show them to ya!

Sounds good. O and make sure to wear some kind of train shirt or something of that sort, it always seems to help me :lol:

 

[P40Power]

Ha I only have one train shirt, and Ive outgrown it. Its from Chicago Union Station from my trip in 1997 and on the front it has P40 803 - My favorite P40 (Oddly enough the Christmas after I got the shirt, I also got a model of 803 - It was one of the first Athearn AMD-103 Units produced, excellent looking and running machine), F40PH 350, and Dash 8 502 (Painted in Amtrak colors, but wasnt this one repainted into Amtrak California colors since it was one of the couple that were purchased by Caltrans?). I dont think I really have to worry much about anyone saying something, I mean yesterday there was some guy who looked to be a railfan who took his car and drove it right on to the Amshack's platforms, a mere 5 feet or so from the tracks! I couldnt believe he did that! Police presence isnt too great in Pittsfield, crime has been way up do to lack of police patrols and police patrols are down because of the city's huge buget deficit! Poor Pittsfield!

 

[AlanB]

Sounds like things are the pitts up there in Pittsfield. :lol:

Sorry, I just couldn't resist you left me with such a good opening.

 

[P40Power]

Yeah thats the citys nickname, The Pits. The city is so much in debt that most of the streetlights cant be turned on at night. GE had a HUGE complex in Pittsfield and made it a major manufacturing center for a long time (mostly defense stuff), but most of it is closed now and the buildings are being knocked down (I think it was such a waste to knock down so many nice buildings, but they are supposidly contaminated with PCBs). Pittsfield is still world headquarters for GE plastics, but all that is a couple of offices and thats it. No actual plastics production. They still maintain a GE house of the future where everything inside is made of plastic and alot of it is computerized and stuff.

 

[Viewliner]

Can't wait to see the pictures, sounds good. Maybe you should order yourself an Amtrak shirt from their website.

 

[P40Power]

Alright, Ill check out the shirts on the website. I really dont want a shirt with Amtrak's new logo though, I really dont care for it. I just remembered that I have a nice Amtrak sweatshirt with nothing on it but the "pointless arrow". A little warm for that though. Once I get the digital camera functional, Ill take a bunch of pictures to show ya. Ill even take some of the former Union Station and the current Amshack to get a taste of what taking a train out of Pittsfield was like, is currently like, and what it will be like in the future! Haha I feel like somekind of add by the BRTA promoting their new "Intermodal Terminal"!