An ongoing $1.45 million project to improve Crawfordsville’s Amtrak stop will make the station ADA compliant.
Crews began work in March to replace the shelter, raise the platform and make improvements to the parking lot along North Green Street. The station remains open during construction, which is expected to be substantially complete after the first of the year, said Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesperson.
Amtrak’s “Cardinal” train, which runs between New York and Chicago, departs from Crawfordsville three days a week. Annual ridership from the station was 1,244 passengers for the year ending Sept. 30, according to Amtrak figures.
Construction was originally scheduled to get underway two years ago, but underground issues delayed the project, Magliari said. Virginia-based Centennial Contractors Enterprises is overseeing the improvements.
Amtrak made its first stop in Crawfordsville in 1980, giving businesspeople, Wabash College students and day travelers daily round-trip access to Chicago aboard the “Hoosier State.” That service ended in 2019 after the state pulled the route’s funding.
In 2005, students in Helen Hudson’s honors English class at Crawfordsville High School began a years-long project to renovate and landscape the shelter. The project gained national recognition from Amtrak and rail associations.
Hudson and other volunteers gathered at the station days before the last “Hoosier State” train departed to clean up the garden and plant flowers.
“It was in thanks for this incredible sense of serving the public with a mode of transportation that everybody can afford,” Hudson said at the time.
