Depot's future is still unclear
SANDPOINT — The future of the historic Sandpoint Depot remains unclear.
What is known, however, is that the station remains closed to Amtrak passengers and there appears to be little hope that it will reopen any time soon. The facility is closed because the ceiling is caving in, which means passengers have to wait on the platform.
“There is no place in wintertime for shelter. There are no restrooms,” said Bonner County resident Natalie Ednie, a regular Amtrak customer.
Rail passengers with vehicles have some form of refuge, although construction of the U.S. Highway 95 bypass forced the temporary parking area to be relocated away from the depot. Ednie said the path connecting the parking area and train platform is poorly lit and slippery, conditions that are exacerbated by the presence of luggage.
Amtrak’s ridership out of the Sandpoint Depot for the 2010 fiscal year was projected at about 5,600 passengers.
Amtrak’s regional media relations office in Oakland has been unresponsive to inquiries about the depot. Voice and e-mail messages left with the office prior to the Thanksgiving holiday and again on Monday yielded no response.
The station’s contract caretaker, Maggie Mjelde, declined to comment on the issue.
Ednie, however, spoke with an Amtrak official last week and he advised her work on the Sand Creek Byway and train traffic have undermined the building’s structure and the company has no plans to address the issue because the building is owned by BNSF Railway, which reportedly plans to install a second set of tracks in the area.
BNSF’s assistant vice president for passenger operations, D.J. Mitchell, said on Monday that the future of the depot is in the hands of Amtrak.
“The depot is Amtrak’s responsibility. It’s theirs to use, maintain, et cetera, as they see fit. So they make the call, not us,” said Mitchell, who plans to look into the matter further.
Meanwhile, officials from the city continue to negotiate with Amtrak and BNSF to see about acquiring and preserving the depot, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Councilwoman Carrie Logan said the negotiations continue and she is optimistic that an arrangement can be reached.
“Given the nature and status of our negotiations, I am unable to give you more detail about where we are,” Logan said in an e-mail to The Daily Bee.
When the city embarked on the plan a year ago, it hoped to acquire the building for a token sum and utilize more than $900,000 in Idaho Transportation Department paid to BNSF to mitigate bypass construction impacts to restore the building.
City officials view the 94-year-old depot as an important historic, economic and transportation asset in the community.
Last year, Amtrak officials said they were deciding whether to use federal stimulus funding to bring the Sandpoint Depot into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act or relocate the stop elsewhere in the greater Sandpoint area so an additional train route could be utilized.