Volunteers Needed! Click Here Next Amtrak Depot Committee Board
Meeting: Thursday, April 10, 2 p.m., TwinStar Credit Union Headquarters conference room; 4501 Intelco Loop, Lacey
AMTRAK passengers
and depot visitors
are welcome to comment, compliment or ask questions to
volunteers by email, click below:
contactOLWstation@gmail.com
Amtrak Cascades may have all its
trains back in service by Monday, April 7, officials told
the Washington State Senate Transportation Committee meeting
at the capitol Tuesday.That would mean the 10 Cascades train routes Amtrak
has substituted with buses through Wednesday will be trains
by Monday.
Amtrak’s plan is to begin adding trains Thursday between
Portland and Seattle. The first of replacement "Amfleet"
rail cars were put into service Tuesday, April 1, between
Seattle and Vancouver B.C (Trains 516 & 519).
Through
at least Wednesday, only the Talgo train and Coast Starlight
will be operating daily each direction from our station
(four trains: Amtrak 503, Amtrak 11, Amtrak 14 and Amtrak
508.) All other 10 Amtrak Cascades south of Seattle are
still impacted. New tickets for the bus routes replacing the
trains are limited and maximum seating next week is expected
to be reduced 50 percent.
This service disruption was
triggered by an abrupt decision by Amtrak to remove all 26
Cascades Bombardier "Horizon Cars" from service due to
corrosion damage.
Operating since 1993 at 6600 Yelm Highway S.E. completely by community
volunteers who meet every passenger train, regardless of when each train
arrives. Volunteers are available twenty-four hours per day for 31 years, seven days per week,14 trains per
day. The depot, also known as "Centennial Station" to celebrate
1889-1989 statehood, was built with community volunteers, donated labor and
contributions from Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey, Thurston County, the Port
of Olympia, etc. It is now the fourth busiest passenger train depot in Washington state
(Mile Post 32.2 on the Burlington Northern Seattle Sub). The
building, designatd by Amtrak as "OLW", was sold to Intercity Transit which maintains the facility and
provides scheduled city bus connections and park/ride lots.
6600
Yelm Highway S.E. Olympia-Lacey, Washington Phone: 360-923-4602 Updated
April 1,, 2025
That data was provided by our YouTube host, Steel Highway, that
hosts our station camera server. That's something like an
astounding 4,300 to 5,000 views per day in our first month of
operation for Olympia-Lacey, the second highest views for any
single location in the Steel Highway YouTube network. Our rail
cam continues to be one of the most appreciated. The average viewer is online each view for 13 minutes. Indications are that we had more than 34,000 distinct individuals viewing our camera in the first month with an overwhelming number returning for more views.
By March, the site collected more than 2,200 likes. After a
power outage forced a reset, we are up to 1,000 likes on March
22.
2024 Annual Statistics for Main 1 and Main 2 at
the Station: 4,908 Amtrak Trains per year!
Compiled by nine
Chehalis Railfans, Here are some statistics on the
mainline track that runs in front of our station
Special thanks to David Norton.
Total Freight & Passenger Trains Recorded: 18,047 Total
Northbound: 10,697 Total Southbound:
7,350 Longest freight train (cars): 288
(About three miles!) Busiest Hour: 7 p.m. - 8
p.m. Slowest Hour: 7 a.m. - 8 a.m. Total
locomotives spotted: 50,147
Average Daily Trains:
49.3 Average Car Count BNSF: 92.2 Average
Car Count UP: 100.8
Santa Claus Arrives by Train
December 14, 2024 Olympia-Lacey Centennial Amtrak
Station
About 300
parents and kids attended Santa's arrival on Amtrak Cascades 502
A giving tree is at the station for
Feline Friends of America and Caring Hearts 4 Paws Sponsored by Olympia-Lacey
Amtrak Centennial Station Volunteers
Photos used by permission of their mothers. Summer is left. River is center
Amtrak Coast Starlight to Los Angeles (Train
11) departs Olympia-Lacey Centennial Amtrak Station daily.
Our forerunner:
"AmShack"
Photo taken in 1980
The remote site had no public
transportation, no lighting, a gravel lot, and a usually non-operational pay
telephone. The three-sided building served East Olympia for about 20
years. (Photo by Paul Vitous)
Daily Trains/Amtrak Buses from Olympia-Lacey
Today's trains are marked with
a red arrow.
OLW is Multimodal: Intercity Transit
Olympia-Lacey Depot (OLW) offers daily
service from 14 trains (Amtrak Coast Starlight and Cascades)
plus two Intercity Transit bus routes (Routes 94 &
64.) The community busses winding through Yelm, Lacey and
Olympia make nearly 80 stops daily at the depot and a
park/ride lot between the hours of 5:45 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Bus 64 from downtown Olympia (College St./Amtrak) currently
makes 28 stops daily, 6:15 a.m. to 8:03 p.m., services the
Lacey Transit Center and terminates
at the station. Bus 94 from
downtown Olympia or Yelm (Yelm Via Boulevard) currently
makes more than 50 stops daily, 5:45 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
It is currently the last bus out to downtown from our
station nightly both weekdays and weekends.
Station Painting
Our station opened in 1993 and a
rendering by J. Craig Thorpe that was painted prior to construction was pictured atop the 1993 National Amtrak Calendar.
That launched a career as a transportation artist for Thorpe. But the Olympia station opened without any financial support from Amtrak for station staff.
The volunteers sold the building to Intercity Transit which
maintains it.
Left, the
Chambers Prairie Station that preceded "AmShack" in East Olympia
that was built by Union Pacific Railroad and razed in the late
1960s. Center is the original Northern Pacific Station for
Olympia near the state Capitol. Photos by Fisher and Labbe are
courtesy of the Northern Pacific Railroad Historical
Association. Right, is a 1912 photo of the Northern Pacific
Depot at Lacey, Washington. Photo from the Harold Meir
Collection, Courtesy St. Martin's University Abbey. Special
thanks to Father Peter Tynan, University Chaplain and Abbey
Monk. Locomotive is a Baldwin 4-6-0 built about 1890.
Our History
Since the Northern Pacific first built track to Tenino in 1872, the
Olympia area has been often spurned for passenger train service. NP
chose Tacoma over Seattle and Olympia for its West Coast terminus. At
the urging of the territorial governor, private landowners began laying
track on their own to connect Olympia with the "Prairie Line" to Tacoma
that ran east from Tenino (known eventually as the Port Townsend
Southern) to enable Olympia passenger service. That same citizen
commitment from the late 1880s continued one hundred years later when
Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater residents began planning a full-service
train station to serve the Amtrak Pioneer and other trains to replace a
three-sided stop at Chambers Prairie in East Olympia (Today, we refer to
it as 'AmShack.')
The initial
fundraising campaign for the station began in 1987 and was to mark the State of Washington
centennial in 1989. This "Centennial Station" that resulted was built largely from community donors and laborers working mostly without compensation. Approximately $100,000 was raised in cash and $300,000 in products and services to build Centennial Station. Washington State provided $60,000 in additional funds to install utilities after the building was completed.
Donors purchased bricks on the station platform during one local donation drive. There were at least 30 Olympia-area depots that preceded it in history (many pictured
inside the station.)
Olympia-Lacey Centennial Amtrak Station was designed by an Olympia architect, Harold Dalke, to capture the feel of an early 20th Century train station. To a model railroader, the 1993 building's classic lines are like the plastic model stations used on Lionel train layouts. The OLW Depot features180-year-old solid cypress corbels, vaulted interior ceilings, stained glass with historic railroad logos, light fixtures scaled from Grand Central Station,
and a classic platform clock donated by the Talgo Corporation in a ceremony by a
visiting Spanish prince.The corbels were refinished at the wood shop of Panorama City and purchased by individual donors for installation.
Bob Bregent
Original Depot Project Manager
He was manager during construction of the station. He recalls asking a representative of the State Department of Transportation for assistance.
"He literally laughed in my face and said 'Nobody rides the train anymore. We're not giving you one red penny.'
"
Bregent said there isn't anything the State
of Washington could have told advocates to galvanize them more.
-Thurston Talk
Rich DeGarmo
Father of the Volunteer Station Model
He was one of the key founders of Olympia-Lacey Centennial Station and the designer of our unique volunteer-run depot model. Richard William DeGarmo, 85, of Tumwater, died Sept. 9,
2024 following a very long illness. Survivors include Susan DeGarmo, his wife who herself was a station volunteer. Amtrak initially refused to stop at our station until Rich worked out a volunteer schedule that allowed Olympia-Lacey train stops in 1993 without any on-site paid Amtrak employees. His legacy continues and lives on with our all-volunteer depot.
Typical volunteer shifts at the station are about five hours and largely
between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.