BRATTLEBORO-After more than five decades of passengers being relegated to the old baggage area of the former Union Station, now the home of the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Amtrak will soon have a new stand-alone station right across the tracks.
Amtrak officials and local, regional, and federal leaders will preside over a ceremonial grand opening of the new station on Depot Street on Wednesday, June 24, starting at 11 a.m.
Vermont’s first level-boarding station will offer a 345-foot-long concrete platform so passengers will not have to use stairs to enter or exit the platform. Its waiting room has 36 fixed seats, drinking fountains, and a new accessible single-occupant restroom adjacent to the waiting room.
The new facility complies with the accessibility standards enforced by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Outside, a covered waiting area will offer benches for eight people and an area for standing, along with generous roof eaves and benches. The parking lot improvements around the new building include two ADA-compliant parking spaces and a new bike shelter.
Construction started in the spring of 2024, with the estimated $7.4 million cost funded by the Biden administration’s federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Brattleboro, which is served by Amtrak’s Vermonter, is Vermont’s third-busiest stop for Amtrak, serving approximately 17,000 passengers per year.
Mural finds a new home
Also part of the new station is the Brooks Memorial Library’s 14-foot, interactive ceramic Brattleboro Words Trail Exhibit, which links sites connected to the region’s rich history of writing, printing, and publishing to audio stories via a free mobile app.
The mural, designed by Brattleboro artist Cynthia Houghton, will permanently occupy the platform-facing outside wall of the new station, an addition that David Handera, Amtrak vice president of stations, facilities, properties, and accessibility called “a great fit for us” in a news release.
The exhibit will be maintained by Friends of Brooks Memorial Library and Brattleboro’s Sunrise Rotary Club using a long-term maintenance fund secured by the Words Project.
Launching of the exhibit marks the project’s transition from Brooks Memorial Library, shepherded into its new home by former Library Director Starr LaTronica.
“The collaboration with the Brattleboro Words Project and all the partners supporting this exhibit are part of the library’s mission to inspire, inform, and empower our diverse community while celebrating Brattleboro’s unique literary history,” said Margaret Atkinson, chair of Brooks Memorial Library Trustees.
The Brattleboro Words Trail features stories about key literary figures from or who chose to settle in Brattleboro and its close environs, including Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, and Lucy Terry Prince (the nation’s first African American poet, from Guilford), among others.
The exhibit is a culmination of almost 10 years of work to connect community members around shared storytelling.
At the opening ceremony, the exhibit will be unveiled by Houghton with comments by Brattleboro Words Project Director Lissa Weinmann, the exhibit coordinator.
Attendees will be able to interact with Houghton, other leaders, and actors depicting characters featured on the Brattleboro Words Trail, as well as get their copies of the Brattleboro Words Trail maps, newly designed by Christopher Grotke of MuseArts.
At around 6 p.m., actors led by the Tiny Theater will perform “From Revolution to Reflection: Live on the Brattleboro Words Trail.” For more information, visit brattleborowords.org.
This News item by Randolph T. Holhut was written for The Commons.