Edmonds station (Washington)

Edmonds station is a train station serving the city of Edmonds, Washington, in the United States. The station is served by Amtrak's Cascades and Empire Builder routes, as well as Sound Transit's N Line, a Sounder commuter rail service which runs between Everett and Seattle. It is located west of Downtown Edmonds adjacent to the city's ferry terminal, served by the Edmonds–Kingston ferry, and a Community Transit bus station. Edmonds station has a passenger waiting room and a single platform.

The station building was opened by the Great Northern Railway in 1957, replacing the city's older depot from 1910. Great Northern merged into Burlington Northern (later BNSF Railway) in 1970; passenger service ceased when Amtrak took over Burlington Northern's passenger routes the following year. Amtrak began operating passenger service from Edmonds station in July 1972 and it has been served by Cascades (originally the Mount Baker International) since 1995. Sound Transit began operating Sounder trains to Edmonds station in December 2003, and later funded a project to rebuild the station and transit center in 2011. The Sound Transit project was conceived after earlier plans to build a combined ferry–rail facility southwest of the city were cancelled in 2008.

Edmonds station is located on a single-tracked segment of the BNSF Scenic Subdivision on Railroad Avenue in downtown Edmonds, adjacent to the Edmonds ferry terminal. It has a single, 1,200-foot-long (370 m) side platform on the east side of the tracks, running from Dayton Street to Main Street and paved with asphalt; the southern half of the platform, measuring 520 feet (160 m), has ticket vending machines, bicycle lockers, and passenger waiting shelters. The Amtrak building is located south of James Street and includes a staffed ticket office, waiting room, vending machines, and restrooms. The building was designed with Modernist elements, including clean lines in the exterior brick walls laid in a stacked bond and large floor-to-ceiling windows. The south end of the station building includes a freight room with a garage and a former baggage room that was occupied by a model railroad exhibit. The model railroad, run by the Swamp Creek and Western Railroad Association, was at the station until 2022 and moved to Everett Station the following year.

At the north end of the station platform is a transit center used by Community Transit buses. It contains Standing Wave, a 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze-and-patina sculpture by Gerard Tsutakawa resembling a series of waves, installed as part of Sound Transit's art program. To the west of the transit center is the Washington State Ferries terminal, which is adjacent to Brackett's Landing Park and the city's downtown commercial district. Edmonds station has 259 parking spaces for Amtrak and Sound Transit passengers, including leased spaces from the nearby Salish Crossing shopping mall—home to the Cascadia Art Museum and several businesses.

Edmonds was founded in 1876 and received its first railroad in 1891, constructed by the Seattle and Montana Railroad between Seattle and British Columbia. The Great Northern Railway later acquired the railroad and completed its transcontinental route to Seattle in 1893, bringing long-distance passenger service to Edmonds. The original station was located on the west side of the tracks away from downtown and derided as inaccessible and undersized for the growing city. A formal investigation of stations across Snohomish County by the Washington State Railroad Commission in 1909 led to a court order for Great Northern to improve their depots, including a modernized facility for Edmonds at James Street, which the railroad resisted in their failed appeal to the state court. Great Northern later agreed to build the new depot after further consultation with Edmonds city leaders over its location and amenities. Later visits by the commission attracted crowds of up to a hundred citizens, and the city agreed to a right of way franchise with Great Northern for the new depot in January 1910. The railroad and city continued to argue over the proposed depot's distance from James Street until the chamber of commerce intervened and requested a compromise be reached.

The new Edmonds depot opened in November 1910, constructed with clapboard sidings and had a wooden platform that was connected to street level by a series of ramps, which were later decorated with railroad knick-knacks. It was initially served by eight daily passenger trains: limited transcontinental trains and local service to Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. Freight services from the new depot also accepted shipments from the Olympic Peninsula, delivered by boat from various shingle mills. By the late 1950s, Great Northern's declining passenger service left Edmonds with only one daily train: the Cascadian from Seattle to Spokane.

In March 1956, Great Northern announced plans to build a modern station in Edmonds to serve the suburban areas north of Seattle, at a cost of $185,000. The new station would include a 175-stall parking lot, a blacktop platform, and a streamlined waiting room with contemporary design elements. Construction of the new station building began in May 1956 and was substantially complete by the end of November. The former depot was demolished on December 18, 1956, and the near-complete station was put into service by the end of the month. It was dedicated on January 2, 1957, and the first transcontinental Empire Builder train to stop at Edmonds arrived on January 7, greeted by a crowd of 1,000 residents and civic leaders from across the region, including Secretary of State Earl Coe.

In March 1970, Great Northern was merged with three other major railroads into the Burlington Northern Railroad, which continued to operate passenger service for one year. In November, the federal government established Railpax (later Amtrak) to consolidate unprofitable transcontinental passenger services previously operated by competing railroads. The six passenger trains serving Edmonds were eliminated or rerouted elsewhere under the Railpax plan; the final Empire Builder train departed from Edmonds on the afternoon of April 30, 1971. The station remained open as a Burlington Northern freight stop and maintained by the railroad in hopes of restored passenger service. Passenger trains to Edmonds station returned a year later on July 17, 1972, with the restored Pacific International between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. Transcontinental service to Edmonds returned on June 13, 1973, via an extension of the North Coast Hiawatha over Stevens Pass, and was supplemented by the rerouted Empire Builder in 1981. Amtrak cancelled the North Coast Hiawatha in 1979 and Pacific International in 1981 due to poor patronage and ticket sales, leaving Edmonds with only two daily train departures. Edmonds was slated to lose its ticketing office and baggage claim in 1983 as part of national cuts to stations with low ridership, but was spared by Amtrak because of an increase in ticket revenue.