Then do something about it? If it was actually important to you, I think you would do something about it instead of complaining about it on TH-cam. Nelson Mandela helped end apartheid from prison, what's your excuse?
The only way they’ll rehab the station is if the surrounding area is built up. If the neighborhood has gone downhill, it’ll be hard to get investors interested in the property. Wish it could be saved though.
I almost bought a 3 decker home a block away from this station in 2000. It was only $75,000 but needed about a hundred grand in work to make it rentable again as 3 apartment units. Given the dilapidated condition of all the other buildings in the area I knew it wouldn't be worth it. Central Falls RI is the poorest city in New England. No industries left in the former "industrial corridor". Plus my Spanish isn't very good. Spanish is the primary language spoken in Central Falls now. When I was looking for an apartment to rent I called a lot of numbers for advertised rentals. No one spoke English. Finally I got an English speaker, heavily accented, who told me "We don't rent to Americans." and hung up. Just some local info that people should know before buying or renting there.
@@jabbermocky4520 "We don't rent to Americans" is a crazy thing to say... in America. Reminds me of how the Indian Caste System is somehow very prevalent in American big tech firms... What the fuck is going on in this country???
@@JohnD-zh9st Have to admit it was a first for me. Nobody in the USA had ever told me that I was an "undesirable element" in this country before. I had lived in Central Falls, briefly, in the mid-80s. I worked there, too, in a factory, around the time Colombian drug cartels first showed up in the city. Then I moved away for 18 years. It was too dangerous all of a sudden. When a job opportunity in CF came up I considered moving back there, hoping that the place had settled down. What I found was a new community of Central Americans from El Salvador and Guatemala. They were the last people who would work for 2 dollars an hour in the few factories left. Whole families worked in the same sweat shops. Nobody spoke any English. I am not bashing immigrants. I just learned how it feels to be "an outsider" in my own country. It really is like visiting a different country nowadays. The "caste system" thrives in places with super-high income inequality.
I miss trains as a common mode of transportation. I also like my independence to take a different route or stop along the way. Well, sadly I can't have it all.
@@SB-qm5wg they massively pollute way more than even a million small cars, and the amount of trains we would need to run for everyone to have reliable transportation, our air quality would look like modern day china. i will take clean air over whatever weird social thing you perceive as a good thing
It's going to take a private investor to save it. For instance, Ford motor company purchased the old broke down, abandoned Michigan Central station in Detroit and spent millions on it... it's actually just opened back up to the public recently, which is super exciting. They've restored other structures in downtown Detroit along with Mike Illich, who owns little Caesars. The Illich's have restored a ton of old buildings in Detroit.
you can make the argument for those that uses the line to get from Rhode Island to NYC could benefit from this & bypassing the NYC trafic, saving many work hours.
@@skylineXpert There is an Amtrak stop a few miles south in Providence. Pawtucket is also a pretty dumpy city with a lot of rundown mills/warehouses. I don't see it being saved.
@@maxpowr90 There's a new Pawtucket/Central Falls station that the MBTA just opened last year within a mile south of it, it's not going to be reused as a train station surely, but preserving the station building would still be nice.
I lived in the Providence metro area for nine years. I have lived in the Detroit metro area for 29 years. Although Ford Motor Co. is technically the entity that rescued the delapitated Michigan Central Station from the wrecking ball, it is the Ford family that put forth the investment required to restore this landmanrk. To be brutally honest, I am not sure that this represents the best possible use of Ford Motor Company's resources for its stock holders. BUT... I applaud the Ford family for commiting its good fortune to the ongoing resurection of Detroit. On a smaller scale, Providence, Pawtucket, and its metro region needs to generate the same level of home-town support for its rennaisance.
Look at Michigan Central Station in Detroit Mi. That building was scheduled for demolition and was brought back to life. This is what this station needs.
as the grandson of a (67 years on the job - WW1 - WW2 - Korea ) railroad person it is a shame to see how horribly we have treated much of our history! THX
Joseph Jenks Jr was something like my 8th great-grandfather! (I think he spelled his name "Jenkes".) I live in Providence, and a street just two blocks north of me is named for him. I fully agree with you about revitalizing the station. I lived in NYC and the surrounding area for many years, and the restoration and revitalization of Grand Central Terminal is amazing. It is now a destination in itself, not just a place commuters hurry through to get to their trains. I lived in Yonkers for 22 years, and the little station there was restored, and it is really magnificent, even just as a station with no other amenities. Other stations and terminals have been revitalized. Examples that come to mind are South Station Boston and Union Station in Washington.
Ryan, your affinity and knowledge of all things about TRAINs is amazing. Thank you for this story about Pawtucket. My dear wife is from Cape Cod...I will share this video with her. Thanks.
Jason Allard has a documentary on youtube about this station with footage exploring inside. Definitely worth checking out - he grew up in Rhode Island, too.
Amtrak and MBTA have both come to the conclusion that it's cheaper to build new. In this section, the track geometry would mean that any platform they would build would really not be ADA compliant.
I really enjoyed this video. As a Pawtucket resident for 76 years minus four years in the military. I am also a railfan, modeler and model RR kit manufacturer. I'm old enough to have taken the train (NYNH&H) to Providence with my mother and sister. Unfortunately, I was a toddler at this time and my memory is pretty vague, I do remember a ticket was .50 cents. I've watched the station sadly crumble over the years. Like clockwork about every ten years or so some concern was going to restore and make some fabulous retail or office center out of the station. Every time a scheme was announced It became a joke after a while. But me and my fellow railfans would always get our hopes up. Now with the new station (a glorified bus stop) I guess the classic station's days are numbered. Although things like this don't move very fast around here. Not that it matters to anyone at all but around here we don't pronounce the "W" in Pa-tucket.
Nobody would visit that museum, sorry to say. It's on the Pawtucket/Central Falls line. Most people in this region won't go there unless they have to. There are no points of interest worth visiting. Sad but true.
It is a testament to how auto-centric Rhode Island politicians when they left communities with nearly 100,000 people without a downtown rail station for decades. For 22 years, Pawtucket had no downtown train service.
It still really doesn't. You still need to take a bus to downtown from the new train station. People don't come here on the train anyway. They live here and take the train to Boston.
@@MajorOutage - Which means that people come to Pawtucket in the evening, then. At any event, as long as the bus system is oriented toward the train station, a location near downtown is enough. Even Los Angeles Union Station is three subway stops from the real center of DTLA, the Financial District.
@@pacificostudios Bruh. I live here. This is not a tourist destination. They get off the train and go home, which is not downtown. Also moving the main bus hub from downtown to the new train station has not been popular.
In Europe most medium, bigger railway stations have the opposite problem with historic railway stations. They are in crowed city centers and have become too small and are expanded . f.e. the major infrastructure construction projects at Stuttgart Germany or Amsterdam the Netherlands. Derilict stations are rare but they do exist on closed rural lines or closed to passenger travel lines. Most former stations even on broken up rail lines are repurposed and become houses restaurants, schools etc. etc.
You make excellent points. Europeans are acciustomed to much higher population density than most US metro areas. Their infrastructure is older, available land is scarce, and reuse is essential. Public policy taxes fuel use MUCH more aggresively that we do in the US. Those taxes support not just road maintenance, but also keeping public transportation clean, safe, efficient, and affordable. Middle class Americans accustomed to cheap fuel for the worn out inefficient SUVs and pickups they drive every day would be VERY skeptical. But moving US public policy in that direction would be to our benefit long term.
Summer of 1973, I was on a freight train headed for Providence at 50 mph. Rounding the curve into the station, three utility workers were on a ladder in the middle of the tracks. Scared the crap out of us , not to mention the workers! Nobody was hurt but I’m sure they had change their shorts!
MBTA built the new station around a half mile away on a straight section of track, much preferred for new construction. By contrast, the old station was on a ~2000ft radius curve, no doubt with significant cant (banking) for non-stop trains. That complicates the design to modern standards so I understand why they didn't choose the old site, whether the main building could have been reused or not. There's also more open space around the new station for future expansion of facilities and even more tracks. The old site was severely constrained by the grade separation trench and a series of closely spaced road overbridges.
The 2017 completion of the rehabilitation of Union Station in Springfield MA cost $94,000,000 as a rough guesstimate of what it might cost, although this was rehab was for a functioning rail/bus station.
I agree that losing a grand old historic building is sad. From a practical transportation perspective, it is hard to justify keeping a train station a mere 6 miles from the Providence Union station. It is hard enough to get people to train rather than drive from Providence to Boston, they certainly won’t do it if there is a train stop every few miles along the way.
You and me both. I feel the same way about the West Oakland Station. Some buildings must be conserved. For soooooo many reasons... the design, artistry, history, soooo much. And most were so industrial strength that modernization wouldn't cost that much ultimately...
Here in Hamilton, Ontario we had two historic train station from two different railroad companies. Both fell into disrepair or abandonment, and both found new life in very different ways. The larger CN station after a period of abandonment was purchased By LIUNA and restored and is not a large culturable hub that leases upscale event space and is a beautiful landmark of railroad history in Canada, (ironically railroad has had a resurgence here in the past couple decades and they have since built ANOTHER new station directly across the street from the original station. The other smaller, but my favourite was the TH&B station which was in a sorry state but in use for decades as rail declined in the city. To save it and help reorganise public transit in the City, it was chosen a couple decades ago to be completely restored to its almost original Art Moderne splendour and because the public transit hub for the downtown core with city busses connecting with provincial long distance busses with trains. it is a remarkable thing actually. Both efforts saved our historical train stations and I am so glad we did. It is unfortunate that the subject of this video can not be saved as ours were because it is a gorgeous building as well.
Thank you very much for quoting at 9:50 the rehabilitation of the old railway to Saint Nabor. Not sure it’s truly comparable because it’s not a building but they indeed did a pretty good job at turning the former railway into a bicycle road with a panoramic terrasse at the very end. There are several examples of such reuse of old railways to develop the bicycle lanes network. The former stations along the tracks are often turned into workshops, housing, celebration halls rather than destroyed. It would be a shame if tho one gets lost.
I think just the cost of structurally restoring the station could be much higher than anticipated, as anyone who remembers to massive cost overruns in restoring Grand Central Terminal in New York City can attest to. And that's not including modernization with new facilities and Americans with Disability Act compliance.
Oh wow, I remember this station when I was on the Acela. I could not make sense of it, was it a dumpy station or was it abandoned. It actually stands out in my memory for a whole year, and I rode the whole corridor that day.
That is a beautiful building. The fact that it wasn't given landmark status isn't that surprising. Most places only have a couple buildings like this, but in RI and many old NE states, they have hundreds of old buildings that come up for landmark status, so they do have to make much more difficult choices on what to give that classification.
I live in RI. This station has been abandoned since 59 and falling apart even earlier. It is an eyesore and incredibly dangerous, not only to people trying to go in it, but to the trains underneath. It should have been demolished decades ago and needs to be done soon before it drops on the NE corridor underneath it.
You should do a piece on the old Providence railroad station, or the Providence rail facilities in general, which are extensive, and parts of the large freight yard are still visible today.
I don't know that area, but i can see it gutted and the shell/facade used to support outdoor seating and food trucks for events. Less weight to support over tracks. We have that in Philly along river.
just a wild guess that it would cost over 100 million dollars to restore this building including replacing all the steel support structure and brick piers as it isn't too long from becoming a nightmare hazard right over the northeast corridor. It's a wonder it hasn't collapsed already or else be deemed too hazardous for trains to travel underneath. A nine million dollar demo sounds like a bargain. Better to put the cost of restoration into expanding RI train service for instance extending commuter rail to Narragansett or replacing the Sakonnet River RR bridge to allow service to Newport.
As a Lyft driver, I pass by this building several times a week always wishing that someone could do something with it. It refuses to collapse with the hopes of someone renovating it. Many of the old mills in Pawtucket and Central Falls have been or are being converted to condos or being repurposed. If someone repurposed this station I believe it would revitalize the whole area into something positive like a new age glory days era.🙂
Shame to see it'll eventually be demolished, I just finished a job in England fitting out an old train station built in 1846 making it into a bustling music venue and due to the laws they have to respect the original building so did a good job of not ruining the original parts too.
I grew up in CF. I went by this a million times. Never saw this functioning as far as I know. Not sure but there might have been flea market at one time. You go by this on Broad St. The S Attleboro station was closed for a long time too. It recently opened but minus the over head walking bridge. I think only 3 stops a day. Seeing this is pretty wild. CF is only 1 square mile. I lived across the street from a park. This video kind of showed me the name. JENKS Park. A large clock tower is there. This is pretty wild
Everything the USA has done with trains and stations baffles me. It used to be great, but instead of modernizing and keeping it great everything turned into shit. Having a modern station with good service to other relevant points of interest (can be anything) is also a really big boost for the rest of the neighborhood. Letting the station rot is also letting the neighborhood rot.
The issue is that this station isn’t near anything of actual value. It’s on the Pawtucket/Central Falls border which is an extremely low income area. The entire region would need to be revived and upscaled for a station like that to make even a slight bit of sense, and even then when the state is so small it’d just be easier to drive there if need be; since it only takes an hour to get from one end of the state to the other.
Your coverage of rail and public grade crossings should be followed up by the raising of ALL RR rights-of-way in the city of Chicago starting in the late 19th or early 20th century. That was one of the greatest engineering feats of its time. I believe it was a City of Chicago ordinance requiring RRs to separate grades due to the immense rail traffic and the huge number of accidents with people and horses that got the ball rolling. The RRs realized that it would actually benefit their operations to build grade separations. I am sure the RRs suffered a LOT of lawsuits when their engines or rolling stock struck, injured, or killed many pedestrians, horses, and vehicles of every kind. We patiently await your video on this topic.
OK In 1986 or 1992 a flea market was operating in the waiting room. I went in. Non-descript. Neighborhood served is run down. I used to occasionally take local trains to Providence that stopped at Pawtucket-Central Falls. One person maybe two got off on the rubble strewn platforms. This is in the 1977 era. The new station with its large parking lot has layout issues as I found out when I took a handicapped friend to board there. But better location. Did you do the Bradford & Foster Brook story a few weeks ago?
I grew up in Pawtucket. As stated in the video, the train station is located right on the border of Pawtucket and Central Falls. That neighborhood is very rough so there's very little chance of anyone restoring it. A museum just doesn't fit the demographic of the area.
If you want an other example from France, in Paris there is an old unused train line called "La Petite Ceinture" that goes all around the city. It is gradually being turned into a park (with the rails still there), and the stations are reused for things like restaurants, bars, nightclubs...
That building is beautiful, please keep it there. do enough renovations to keep it safe and thats it. make it open to walk through without adding or taking anything away. Explorable space within beautiful old buildings is becoming rare. they knock them down or make them into luxury condos and take way all of the personality
Having lived nine years in the Providence metro region, I have fond memories of this second tier city and the proud history of the area. As much as I admire that history and landmarks like this old station, I don;t favor spending limited public resources on preservation of relics that outlive their usefulness. Pawtucket and Cen'l Falls (as the natives call it) need limited resources spent on the future of their children. Not on nostalgia that won't help them thrive in the 21st century.
I am not an American. My city had (limited) passenger rail service until about the mid-1980s. The passenger station sat empty and derelict for several years. It has since been repurposed into a retail and office building. The tracks are long gone, and much of the right-of-way is now a paved walking trail. That said, it was significantly smaller and better located than this building.
Unfortunately most people do not care about historic buildings so the government also believes in abandoning old expensive to maintain buildings. Like in Detroit unless a private business can find a useful profitable purpose for these types of buildings they most likely will be taken down. Another problem today is with the high interest rates it makes it more expensive to try and save a building like this.
I live nearby and have 'let myself in' to look around a few times. It's a shame we couldn't save the building and do something with it, but I can see why it would be very expensive to restore and maintain. Also, around here we don't emphasize the 'PAW' in Pawtucket, we say it more like "P'TUCK-it", the P goes right into the 'tuck', maybe a little like "pu'TUCKit", but that's it.
It would be great if we could preserve structures like that old RR Station or even repurpose, the cost of construction like many things just make it impractical.
On a more happy note, the Michigan Central Station has officially reopened for tours. After 4 years and a lot of hard work by Ford, theyve restored the once great station to its former glory.
What is funny is they did have plans to repurpose it as a market, but Pawtucket/Central Falls is just not a popular enough place for people to visit outside of historic tourists and scavenger hunters. Old factory buildings here in Rhode Island get converted into living spaces, (if they don't get burned down by homeless people lighting a flame in an oil soaked factory. In fact the new station is build beside a factory that burned down.) but the station is just not fisable to do that either. They also can't even demolish it since it sits right on top of the tracks, it has to put the tracks in absolute danger in order to even have it removed. So there it sits in the worst condition. Not prosperous, or destroyed. Just there, decaying and slowly dying.
I remember taking a train ride from that station in the early 50's with my father and friends. Then it closed. The current or recent owners have long sought alternatives to demolition. Unfortunately, the general location, mostly lower income residential and small stores, does not lend itself to any kind of a viable revitalization effort. It would require a massive plan for the whole area that would not be economically feasible. And we have our skewed political priorities. After all, we built a pedestrian bridge in Providence for the same price it would have taken to keep the PawSox in Pawtucket at a significant long term economic and social benefit to the area and the state. What's the return on investment for the bridge Mr. Former (thank God) Speaker?
For future reference, the w in 'Pawtucket' should be silent. That's the first thing that lets me know you're not from Rhode Island. 😅 I live near the station and there had been some plans to renovate the building do something there, like a farmer's market or food hall, but it really didn't help that CVS built a store in their parking lot.
Now they are saying they might build a tunnel instead, in it's place, since they have to tear the whole thing down anyway, and got no bids, zero, for the rebuild or the new I-95 bridge , 3 ferrys daily, that didn't last long
@@preshisify1 ouch. I feel like we lost providence from our side of MA when this happened, so if it’s long term then what a shame! I can’t imagine this fix would be done in a year or less.
Honestly if they were to restore the building It could be used as an annex to the new station just south of the building, serving a new rail service to Worcester instead of Boston.
Why did you say train service to Providence was restored in 1988?? They have always been a stop on the Northeast Corridor. The new Providence station might have opened in 1988 but they were never without service to my knowledge.
"PAAAWW-tucket", tell me you're not from Rhode Island without telling me you're not from Rhode Island 🤣 There's no Paws 🐾 in Pawtucket, especially now with the loss of McCoy Stadium (another historical landmark being bulldozed) and Pawsox. Joking aside, thanks for the great video about the history of this station! I'm sure even in ruin the inside must look grand.
Economics: the science of choice. The dismal science. I saw Terminal Station in Atlanta as a child--long gone now. 30th Street Station in my native Philadelphia has survived. Then there's New York, where one may contrast GCT with Pennsylvania Station.
I'd be all for it's preservation if not for it posing a danger to the rail traffic below if the structure were to collapse. Chances are pretty good it would lead to a major catastrophe because that stretch of track is so heavily used on a daily basis. That's another problem, vibration. Can we trust a structure built in the 19th century to be able to continue withstand these stresses into perpetuity? Structures constructed back then tend to be over built by modern standards but the quality of steel available then was far lesser than it's now and it tends to deteriorate more rapidly so the damage may be worse than people realize. I hate to see it but you can't compromise with people's safety.
I grew up seeing this station sink further and further into disrepair broke my heart 20 years ago and it’s still tough today .
@@andrewpanciotti5518 Me too. Such a shame.
What are the approximate cross streets of its location? I'm from Pawtucket originally.
@@richardbosworth6635 Broad Street not far from Barton St / Cross St near CF line.
Then do something about it? If it was actually important to you, I think you would do something about it instead of complaining about it on TH-cam. Nelson Mandela helped end apartheid from prison, what's your excuse?
@@richardbosworth6635 Broad St. and Clay St. That intersection.
"When money talks, history walks." Sick!
So true. Hence urban renewal.
The only way they’ll rehab the station is if the surrounding area is built up. If the neighborhood has gone downhill, it’ll be hard to get investors interested in the property. Wish it could be saved though.
They already determined that the structure is so far gone that it's cheaper to build a new one and demolish the old one.
I almost bought a 3 decker home a block away from this station in 2000. It was only $75,000 but needed about a hundred grand in work to make it rentable again as 3 apartment units. Given the dilapidated condition of all the other buildings in the area I knew it wouldn't be worth it. Central Falls RI is the poorest city in New England. No industries left in the former "industrial corridor". Plus my Spanish isn't very good. Spanish is the primary language spoken in Central Falls now. When I was looking for an apartment to rent I called a lot of numbers for advertised rentals. No one spoke English. Finally I got an English speaker, heavily accented, who told me "We don't rent to Americans." and hung up. Just some local info that people should know before buying or renting there.
@@jabbermocky4520 Thanks for sharing your first-hand experience in that area.
@@jabbermocky4520 "We don't rent to Americans" is a crazy thing to say... in America. Reminds me of how the Indian Caste System is somehow very prevalent in American big tech firms... What the fuck is going on in this country???
@@JohnD-zh9st Have to admit it was a first for me. Nobody in the USA had ever told me that I was an "undesirable element" in this country before. I had lived in Central Falls, briefly, in the mid-80s. I worked there, too, in a factory, around the time Colombian drug cartels first showed up in the city. Then I moved away for 18 years. It was too dangerous all of a sudden.
When a job opportunity in CF came up I considered moving back there, hoping that the place had settled down. What I found was a new community of Central Americans from El Salvador and Guatemala. They were the last people who would work for 2 dollars an hour in the few factories left. Whole families worked in the same sweat shops. Nobody spoke any English.
I am not bashing immigrants. I just learned how it feels to be "an outsider" in my own country. It really is like visiting a different country nowadays. The "caste system" thrives in places with super-high income inequality.
I miss trains as a common mode of transportation. I also like my independence to take a different route or stop along the way. Well, sadly I can't have it all.
I wish trains would make a come back too.
@@SB-qm5wg they massively pollute way more than even a million small cars, and the amount of trains we would need to run for everyone to have reliable transportation, our air quality would look like modern day china. i will take clean air over whatever weird social thing you perceive as a good thing
Trains are very common in the Northeast and still travel in volume under the station. Its a busy route for Amtrak and MBTA.
Get off a train and hop on a rent-bike or Uber. We just need better infrastructure
Your independence is even worse if you fly.
It's going to take a private investor to save it. For instance, Ford motor company purchased the old broke down, abandoned Michigan Central station in Detroit and spent millions on it... it's actually just opened back up to the public recently, which is super exciting. They've restored other structures in downtown Detroit along with Mike Illich, who owns little Caesars. The Illich's have restored a ton of old buildings in Detroit.
you can make the argument for those that uses the line to get from Rhode Island to NYC could benefit from this & bypassing the NYC trafic, saving many work hours.
They did a magnificent restoration on that station.
@@skylineXpert There is an Amtrak stop a few miles south in Providence. Pawtucket is also a pretty dumpy city with a lot of rundown mills/warehouses. I don't see it being saved.
@@maxpowr90 There's a new Pawtucket/Central Falls station that the MBTA just opened last year within a mile south of it, it's not going to be reused as a train station surely, but preserving the station building would still be nice.
I lived in the Providence metro area for nine years. I have lived in the Detroit metro area for 29 years. Although Ford Motor Co. is technically the entity that rescued the delapitated Michigan Central Station from the wrecking ball, it is the Ford family that put forth the investment required to restore this landmanrk. To be brutally honest, I am not sure that this represents the best possible use of Ford Motor Company's resources for its stock holders. BUT... I applaud the Ford family for commiting its good fortune to the ongoing resurection of Detroit. On a smaller scale, Providence, Pawtucket, and its metro region needs to generate the same level of home-town support for its rennaisance.
Look at Michigan Central Station in Detroit Mi. That building was scheduled for demolition and was brought back to life. This is what this station needs.
Very interesting story. So sad that no one cares about this great historical structure.
I work in Pawtucket and pass by the station daily. Very sad how many vacant old buildings there are in this area too
as the grandson of a (67 years on the job - WW1 - WW2 - Korea ) railroad person it is a shame to see how horribly we have treated much of our history! THX
Good job repositioning the mic, no breath pops and less muddy on the EQ.
Love your channel!
Joseph Jenks Jr was something like my 8th great-grandfather! (I think he spelled his name "Jenkes".) I live in Providence, and a street just two blocks north of me is named for him.
I fully agree with you about revitalizing the station. I lived in NYC and the surrounding area for many years, and the restoration and revitalization of Grand Central Terminal is amazing. It is now a destination in itself, not just a place commuters hurry through to get to their trains. I lived in Yonkers for 22 years, and the little station there was restored, and it is really magnificent, even just as a station with no other amenities. Other stations and terminals have been revitalized. Examples that come to mind are South Station Boston and Union Station in Washington.
One of Pawtucket's middle schools is also named after Jenks.
@@MajorOutage Thanks! I didn't know that.
Such bulls**t! The loss of so many beautiful old American buildings or structures...... sad☠️
Trying to make it look like Dubai and Tokyo, I don't want that
Ryan, your affinity and knowledge of all things about TRAINs is amazing. Thank you for this story about Pawtucket. My dear wife is from Cape Cod...I will share this video with her. Thanks.
Cape Cod isn't Rhode Island.
Jason Allard has a documentary on youtube about this station with footage exploring inside. Definitely worth checking out - he grew up in Rhode Island, too.
The location is on a curved section of track. Both the MBTA and Amtrak see this as a safety problem. Sadly.
Amtrak and MBTA have both come to the conclusion that it's cheaper to build new. In this section, the track geometry would mean that any platform they would build would really not be ADA compliant.
I really enjoyed this video. As a Pawtucket resident for 76 years minus four years in the military. I am also a railfan, modeler and model RR kit manufacturer. I'm old enough to have taken the train (NYNH&H) to Providence with my mother and sister. Unfortunately, I was a toddler at this time and my memory is pretty vague, I do remember a ticket was .50 cents. I've watched the station sadly crumble over the years. Like clockwork about every ten years or so some concern was going to restore and make some fabulous retail or office center out of the station. Every time a scheme was announced It became a joke after a while. But me and my fellow railfans would always get our hopes up. Now with the new station (a glorified bus stop) I guess the classic station's days are numbered. Although things like this don't move very fast around here. Not that it matters to anyone at all but around here we don't pronounce the "W" in Pa-tucket.
I’ve watched most of your videos Ryan but this one is in my backyard. Great video on it!
This station needs to be restored as a transportation museum
Nobody would visit that museum, sorry to say. It's on the Pawtucket/Central Falls line. Most people in this region won't go there unless they have to. There are no points of interest worth visiting. Sad but true.
It is a testament to how auto-centric Rhode Island politicians when they left communities with nearly 100,000 people without a downtown rail station for decades. For 22 years, Pawtucket had no downtown train service.
Back then, that is what the residents primarily wanted.
It still really doesn't. You still need to take a bus to downtown from the new train station.
People don't come here on the train anyway. They live here and take the train to Boston.
@@MajorOutage - Which means that people come to Pawtucket in the evening, then. At any event, as long as the bus system is oriented toward the train station, a location near downtown is enough. Even Los Angeles Union Station is three subway stops from the real center of DTLA, the Financial District.
@@pacificostudios Bruh. I live here. This is not a tourist destination. They get off the train and go home, which is not downtown.
Also moving the main bus hub from downtown to the new train station has not been popular.
Unreal
In Europe most medium, bigger railway stations have the opposite problem with historic railway stations.
They are in crowed city centers and have become too small and are expanded .
f.e. the major infrastructure construction projects at Stuttgart Germany or Amsterdam the Netherlands.
Derilict stations are rare but they do exist on closed rural lines or closed to passenger travel lines.
Most former stations even on broken up rail lines are repurposed and become houses restaurants, schools etc. etc.
You make excellent points. Europeans are acciustomed to much higher population density than most US metro areas. Their infrastructure is older, available land is scarce, and reuse is essential. Public policy taxes fuel use MUCH more aggresively that we do in the US. Those taxes support not just road maintenance, but also keeping public transportation clean, safe, efficient, and affordable. Middle class Americans accustomed to cheap fuel for the worn out inefficient SUVs and pickups they drive every day would be VERY skeptical. But moving US public policy in that direction would be to our benefit long term.
W is silent. PA-TUCK-IT
Thank you. My ears are ringing. lol
Yes, and the emphasis is on the second syllable as in pa-TUCK-it, not PAW-tuck-it
Yes. I lived in RI for more than 30 years. Nobody ever said PAW-tuck-et! It was always pah-TUCK-it.
Couldn’t make it two minutes into this bud because of that. Yuck.
Ryan is getting better at pronunciations…. 😃
The train station isn’t the only thing falling down in the area…
I noticed you changed your way of narrating the videos a bit and I love it.
Summer of 1973, I was on a freight train headed for Providence at 50 mph. Rounding the curve into the station, three utility workers were on a ladder in the middle of the tracks. Scared the crap out of us , not to mention the workers! Nobody was hurt but I’m sure they had change their shorts!
Great video. I learned of this station about a year ago. Looked into its history. Nice to see a video about the station
1671-1921 he must have had good genes! long telomeres or whatever they are called.
He could have given Methuselah a run for his money!
I believe they where referring to the house at that location not the individual.
I thought that was his headstone until I saw the dates.
MBTA built the new station around a half mile away on a straight section of track, much preferred for new construction. By contrast, the old station was on a ~2000ft radius curve, no doubt with significant cant (banking) for non-stop trains. That complicates the design to modern standards so I understand why they didn't choose the old site, whether the main building could have been reused or not. There's also more open space around the new station for future expansion of facilities and even more tracks. The old site was severely constrained by the grade separation trench and a series of closely spaced road overbridges.
@@marktownend8065 …. and commuter rail parking at the new station which is not available at the old CF/Pawt station.
6:20 If it fell into despair, a prescription of antidepressants is called for. If it fell into disrepair, some repairs are needed.
@@a62dave Give it some Benadryl
@@FLAGMACHINE11 Big ups for diphenhydramine! It's the wonder drug that works wonders.
Hooray for Trazodone!
Remember taking the train with my mom in the late 60’s seeing this station on the way to Providence from Boston
What a beautiful building. It would be wonderful to see it restored.
At 430 passengers a day, you'd be lucky to get a taxi stand.
Finally some New England history
The 2017 completion of the rehabilitation of Union Station in Springfield MA cost $94,000,000 as a rough guesstimate of what it might cost, although this was rehab was for a functioning rail/bus station.
I agree that losing a grand old historic building is sad. From a practical transportation perspective, it is hard to justify keeping a train station a mere 6 miles from the Providence Union station. It is hard enough to get people to train rather than drive from Providence to Boston, they certainly won’t do it if there is a train stop every few miles along the way.
Thank's for the vid. I explored here in 2019 and always wondered about its history.
The Older the Treasure is , the More Worth Protecting it is. ~Micarah Tewers
Great information)
You and me both. I feel the same way about the West Oakland Station. Some buildings must be conserved. For soooooo many reasons... the design, artistry, history, soooo much. And most were so industrial strength that modernization wouldn't cost that much ultimately...
Here in Hamilton, Ontario we had two historic train station from two different railroad companies. Both fell into disrepair or abandonment, and both found new life in very different ways. The larger CN station after a period of abandonment was purchased By LIUNA and restored and is not a large culturable hub that leases upscale event space and is a beautiful landmark of railroad history in Canada, (ironically railroad has had a resurgence here in the past couple decades and they have since built ANOTHER new station directly across the street from the original station.
The other smaller, but my favourite was the TH&B station which was in a sorry state but in use for decades as rail declined in the city. To save it and help reorganise public transit in the City, it was chosen a couple decades ago to be completely restored to its almost original Art Moderne splendour and because the public transit hub for the downtown core with city busses connecting with provincial long distance busses with trains. it is a remarkable thing actually. Both efforts saved our historical train stations and I am so glad we did. It is unfortunate that the subject of this video can not be saved as ours were because it is a gorgeous building as well.
They got rid of the big station in Providence too. I can't remember what they gave as an excuse. It was a fancy station.
Thank you very much for quoting at 9:50 the rehabilitation of the old railway to Saint Nabor. Not sure it’s truly comparable because it’s not a building but they indeed did a pretty good job at turning the former railway into a bicycle road with a panoramic terrasse at the very end. There are several examples of such reuse of old railways to develop the bicycle lanes network. The former stations along the tracks are often turned into workshops, housing, celebration halls rather than destroyed.
It would be a shame if tho one gets lost.
I think just the cost of structurally restoring the station could be much higher than anticipated, as anyone who remembers to massive cost overruns in restoring Grand Central Terminal in New York City can attest to. And that's not including modernization with new facilities and Americans with Disability Act compliance.
Sad to say, the station sits in what might be called an impoverished area, I don't see it becoming a commuter hub.
Oh wow, I remember this station when I was on the Acela. I could not make sense of it, was it a dumpy station or was it abandoned. It actually stands out in my memory for a whole year, and I rode the whole corridor that day.
Thank you for such a nice informative video!
That is a beautiful building. The fact that it wasn't given landmark status isn't that surprising. Most places only have a couple buildings like this, but in RI and many old NE states, they have hundreds of old buildings that come up for landmark status, so they do have to make much more difficult choices on what to give that classification.
I live in RI. This station has been abandoned since 59 and falling apart even earlier. It is an eyesore and incredibly dangerous, not only to people trying to go in it, but to the trains underneath. It should have been demolished decades ago and needs to be done soon before it drops on the NE corridor underneath it.
@@eileencoffey6657 It should have been preserved decades ago but unfortunately I feel it’s too far gone to be saved
You should do a piece on the old Providence railroad station, or the Providence rail facilities in general, which are extensive, and parts of the large freight yard are still visible today.
I don't know that area, but i can see it gutted and the shell/facade used to support outdoor seating and food trucks for events. Less weight to support over tracks. We have that in Philly along river.
My cousin used to go exploring inside of that building
just a wild guess that it would cost over 100 million dollars to restore this building including replacing all the steel support structure and brick piers as it isn't too long from becoming a nightmare hazard right over the northeast corridor. It's a wonder it hasn't collapsed already or else be deemed too hazardous for trains to travel underneath. A nine million dollar demo sounds like a bargain. Better to put the cost of restoration into expanding RI train service for instance extending commuter rail to Narragansett or replacing the Sakonnet River RR bridge to allow service to Newport.
I’m surprised it hasn’t collapsed what a disgrace
Jenckes worked at the Iron Works in Saugus, Mass!!
As a Lyft driver, I pass by this building several times a week always wishing that someone could do something with it. It refuses to collapse with the hopes of someone renovating it. Many of the old mills in Pawtucket and Central Falls have been or are being converted to condos or being repurposed. If someone repurposed this station I believe it would revitalize the whole area into something positive like a new age glory days era.🙂
Shame to see it'll eventually be demolished, I just finished a job in England fitting out an old train station built in 1846 making it into a bustling music venue and due to the laws they have to respect the original building so did a good job of not ruining the original parts too.
another great video!
I grew up in CF. I went by this a million times. Never saw this functioning as far as I know. Not sure but there might have been flea market at one time. You go by this on Broad St. The S Attleboro station was closed for a long time too. It recently opened but minus the over head walking bridge. I think only 3 stops a day. Seeing this is pretty wild. CF is only 1 square mile. I lived across the street from a park. This video kind of showed me the name. JENKS Park. A large clock tower is there. This is pretty wild
Everything the USA has done with trains and stations baffles me. It used to be great, but instead of modernizing and keeping it great everything turned into shit. Having a modern station with good service to other relevant points of interest (can be anything) is also a really big boost for the rest of the neighborhood. Letting the station rot is also letting the neighborhood rot.
The issue is that this station isn’t near anything of actual value. It’s on the Pawtucket/Central Falls border which is an extremely low income area. The entire region would need to be revived and upscaled for a station like that to make even a slight bit of sense, and even then when the state is so small it’d just be easier to drive there if need be; since it only takes an hour to get from one end of the state to the other.
Your coverage of rail and public grade crossings should be followed up by the raising of ALL RR rights-of-way in the city of Chicago starting in the late 19th or early 20th century. That was one of the greatest engineering feats of its time. I believe it was a City of Chicago ordinance requiring RRs to separate grades due to the immense rail traffic and the huge number of accidents with people and horses that got the ball rolling. The RRs realized that it would actually benefit their operations to build grade separations. I am sure the RRs suffered a LOT of lawsuits when their engines or rolling stock struck, injured, or killed many pedestrians, horses, and vehicles of every kind. We patiently await your video on this topic.
I always wanted to see this station rebuilt.
OK In 1986 or 1992 a flea market was operating in the waiting room. I went in. Non-descript. Neighborhood served is run down. I used to occasionally take local trains to Providence that stopped at Pawtucket-Central Falls. One person maybe two got off on the rubble strewn platforms. This is in the 1977 era. The new station with its large parking lot has layout issues as I found out when I took a handicapped friend to board there. But better location.
Did you do the Bradford & Foster Brook story a few weeks ago?
I grew up in Pawtucket. As stated in the video, the train station is located right on the border of Pawtucket and Central Falls. That neighborhood is very rough so there's very little chance of anyone restoring it. A museum just doesn't fit the demographic of the area.
If you want an other example from France, in Paris there is an old unused train line called "La Petite Ceinture" that goes all around the city. It is gradually being turned into a park (with the rails still there), and the stations are reused for things like restaurants, bars, nightclubs...
Man what a video. I live in RI and it’s pretty accurate
That building is beautiful, please keep it there. do enough renovations to keep it safe and thats it. make it open to walk through without adding or taking anything away. Explorable space within beautiful old buildings is becoming rare. they knock them down or make them into luxury condos and take way all of the personality
Having lived nine years in the Providence metro region, I have fond memories of this second tier city and the proud history of the area. As much as I admire that history and landmarks like this old station, I don;t favor spending limited public resources on preservation of relics that outlive their usefulness. Pawtucket and Cen'l Falls (as the natives call it) need limited resources spent on the future of their children. Not on nostalgia that won't help them thrive in the 21st century.
There's a station in the hunts point area in the Bronx, haven't seen any progress with the station, near the 6 train
I am not an American. My city had (limited) passenger rail service until about the mid-1980s. The passenger station sat empty and derelict for several years. It has since been repurposed into a retail and office building. The tracks are long gone, and much of the right-of-way is now a paved walking trail. That said, it was significantly smaller and better located than this building.
It's stories like these that make me wish someone could start a business of buying and renovating buildings like these.
Instead of buying homes, flipping them and making them affordable? Yeah, that may be a better option for the super greedy people.
@@QuadMochaMatti let's be honest with ourselves. No one flips houses with intent of making them affordable so you can get out of here with that b.s.
Unfortunately most people do not care about historic buildings so the government also believes in abandoning old expensive to maintain buildings. Like in Detroit unless a private business can find a useful profitable purpose for these types of buildings they most likely will be taken down. Another problem today is with the high interest rates it makes it more expensive to try and save a building like this.
I live nearby and have 'let myself in' to look around a few times. It's a shame we couldn't save the building and do something with it, but I can see why it would be very expensive to restore and maintain.
Also, around here we don't emphasize the 'PAW' in Pawtucket, we say it more like "P'TUCK-it", the P goes right into the 'tuck', maybe a little like "pu'TUCKit", but that's it.
This building must've been grand in its day. It's always sad to see another historical train landmark go. I wish this could be saved.
It would be great if we could preserve structures like that old RR Station or even repurpose, the cost of construction like many things just make it impractical.
On a more happy note, the Michigan Central Station has officially reopened for tours. After 4 years and a lot of hard work by Ford, theyve restored the once great station to its former glory.
Joplin Missouri, railroad station at 3rd and main.... Called Union Depot.... I've explored it but never knew the full history.... Maybe u could help?
Went to explore the station a few years ago and got chased out by drug addicts
What is funny is they did have plans to repurpose it as a market, but Pawtucket/Central Falls is just not a popular enough place for people to visit outside of historic tourists and scavenger hunters. Old factory buildings here in Rhode Island get converted into living spaces, (if they don't get burned down by homeless people lighting a flame in an oil soaked factory. In fact the new station is build beside a factory that burned down.) but the station is just not fisable to do that either. They also can't even demolish it since it sits right on top of the tracks, it has to put the tracks in absolute danger in order to even have it removed. So there it sits in the worst condition. Not prosperous, or destroyed. Just there, decaying and slowly dying.
We loose so much history to progress but no one gives much in the way of benefits for preserving landmark structures like this.
This is such a unique structure. It’s a shame that it’s been allowed to deteriorate to this point.
I remember taking a train ride from that station in the early 50's with my father and friends. Then it closed. The current or recent owners have long sought alternatives to demolition. Unfortunately, the general location, mostly lower income residential and small stores, does not lend itself to any kind of a viable revitalization effort. It would require a massive plan for the whole area that would not be economically feasible. And we have our skewed political priorities. After all, we built a pedestrian bridge in Providence for the same price it would have taken to keep the PawSox in Pawtucket at a significant long term economic and social benefit to the area and the state. What's the return on investment for the bridge Mr. Former (thank God) Speaker?
Before referencing "the beauty of the surrounding area" as a reason to rehabilitate you should go see that neighborhood.
I think it should be made into a pub/small concert hall.
I used to live in Rhode Island
For future reference, the w in 'Pawtucket' should be silent. That's the first thing that lets me know you're not from Rhode Island. 😅
I live near the station and there had been some plans to renovate the building do something there, like a farmer's market or food hall, but it really didn't help that CVS built a store in their parking lot.
They did a nice job with the station in wusta, not Worcester.
I can tell you're not from Rhode Island by how you pronounce Pawtucket lmao. We just say Puhtuckit
And you probably pronounce Oregon and Washington incorrectly...
@@QuadMochaMatti and how do you pronounce them?
Yes, he sounds… articulate.
@@maxdadmark it’s customary and polite to accept how people who live in a place say its name. Pa-tuck-it, forever. Just like Portland, Organ.
That building safer than the 195 bridge
Now they are saying they might build a tunnel instead, in it's place, since they have to tear the whole thing down anyway, and got no bids, zero, for the rebuild or the new I-95 bridge , 3 ferrys daily, that didn't last long
@@preshisify1 ouch. I feel like we lost providence from our side of MA when this happened, so if it’s long term then what a shame! I can’t imagine this fix would be done in a year or less.
I lived in Rhode Island for 9 years. RI has the best politicians money can buy. That's why there is blight where wonderful places once stood.
National Historical Register... of blight and decay. Sometimes, things do need to be torn down, even if it's sad.
Honestly if they were to restore the building It could be used as an annex to the new station just south of the building, serving a new rail service to Worcester instead of Boston.
P'tucket... But I upvoted because it's still a good video.
You can always spot a non Rhode Islander when they say PAW-tucket. We all say puh-TUCK -it. 😅
P'tuckit
@@bobt5778 true Rhode Islanders can even tell the difference between Pawtucket and Pawtuxet
da bucket
America used to be teeming with highly intelligent people that knew how build and run transportation systems. They've all but disappeared.
Question … the video shows PAWTVCKET via Pawtucket typo or did the name change?
Why did you say train service to Providence was restored in 1988?? They have always been a stop on the Northeast Corridor. The new Providence station might have opened in 1988 but they were never without service to my knowledge.
"PAAAWW-tucket", tell me you're not from Rhode Island without telling me you're not from Rhode Island 🤣 There's no Paws 🐾 in Pawtucket, especially now with the loss of McCoy Stadium (another historical landmark being bulldozed) and Pawsox.
Joking aside, thanks for the great video about the history of this station! I'm sure even in ruin the inside must look grand.
I did a walk thru about a few years ago nothing but decay and homeless people living in tents there.
Economics: the science of choice. The dismal science. I saw Terminal Station in Atlanta as a child--long gone now. 30th Street Station in my native Philadelphia has survived. Then there's New York, where one may contrast GCT with Pennsylvania Station.
I'd be all for it's preservation if not for it posing a danger to the rail traffic below if the structure were to collapse. Chances are pretty good it would lead to a major catastrophe because that stretch of track is so heavily used on a daily basis. That's another problem, vibration. Can we trust a structure built in the 19th century to be able to continue withstand these stresses into perpetuity? Structures constructed back then tend to be over built by modern standards but the quality of steel available then was far lesser than it's now and it tends to deteriorate more rapidly so the damage may be worse than people realize. I hate to see it but you can't compromise with people's safety.
FYI, "Puh-tucket" not "Paw-tucket"
It’s insane to destroy that
Even Detroit spent over $100 million on renovations to the old train station!