Lewistown station

Lewistown station (also known as Lewistown Junction) is an Amtrak railway station located about 60 miles northwest of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at PA 103 and Helen Street in Lewistown, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. The station is actually located across the Juniata River from Lewistown proper, a little less than one mile south of the center of the borough. It is currently only served by Amtrak's Pennsylvanian, which operates once per day in each direction, though until 2005, Lewistown was served by a second daily train, the Three Rivers (a replacement service for the legendary Broadway Limited), an extended version of the Pennsylvanian that terminated in Chicago. Upon its cancellation, the sole Pennsylvanian marked the first time in Lewistown's railway history that the town was served by just a single, daily passenger train. A station building exists at the stop, which is open at least 30 minutes before scheduled train arrival and during train departure times. There is no ticket office at this station, as Amtrak closed the ticket office in 1977. The distance between Lewistown and the next station eastward, the Harrisburg Transportation Center, is the longest distance between stations (61 miles) anywhere along the route between Pittsburgh and New York. The station building is the oldest structure built by the Pennsylvania Railroad which is still standing. The current building was constructed from 1848 to 1849 as the freight station, with a nearby hotel serving as the passenger depot. Train service to Lewistown from Harrisburg started in September 1849. The hotel's additional use as the passenger station ended in 1868 after an expansion had been made to the existing freight station. The hotel remained in operation along with a restaurant, and a Railway Express Agency. That building was demolished in the 1950s. "J" Tower, which was added in the 1870s as a two-story brick tower within the depot, was removed in the mid-1950s. During restoration of the depot, a replica of "J" Tower was installed into the building in the mid-1990s. After the merger of the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads on February 1, 1968, ownership transferred to Penn Central. When Amtrak took over passenger train operations on May 1, 1971, ownership of the Lewistown Station was transferred to Amtrak. Amtrak sold the station and surrounding land to the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society in October 1985, with allowances to keep Lewistown as a stop for their daily passenger trains. The PRRT&HS performed a complete exterior and interior restoration of the station, reconstructing it as it would have appeared in the early 1950s. The restoration of the interior had been significantly completed by 1999 so the building could be occupied for use. The bay window of the station was renovated for use as a passenger waiting room and is leased by Amtrak to be open for the use of passengers, with volunteers staffing the waiting room daily to assist passengers. The remainder of the station complex was renovated for use as an Archives Research and Storage facility for the extensive historical collection of records which have been donated to the PRRT&HS through the generosity of its members, former PRR employees, and goodwill of the corporate successors of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In December 2019, the Mifflin County Planning Commission announced a two-phase transportation study on the improvements needed to the station and infrastructure, and the transportation and traffic flow. This would be a first step toward possibly improving daily Amtrak service to Lewistown on the Keystone Corridor to two trains in each direction daily instead of only one. After securing funding, the improvements are slated to begin by September 2025. Notes Track numbers: 1 & 2 (Amtrak), 1 & 2 (Norfolk Southern) Image gallery References Bibliography Yanosey, Robert (2010). Pennsylvania Railroad Facilities in Color: Volume 8 Allegheny Division: Banks to Antis. Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books. ISBN 978-1582482897. External links Media related to Lewistown (Amtrak station) at Wikimedia Commons Lewistown, PA – Amtrak Lewistown, PA – Station history at Great American Stations (Amtrak) Lewistown Amtrak Station (USA RailGuide -- TrainWeb) Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society (PRRT&HS) Lewistown, PA - Station history during PRR at Keystone Crossings