 Staunton, VA | Cardinal | Culpeper, VA  |
 Lynchburg, VA | Crescent | |
| Northeast Regional |
Charlottesville, Virginia is one of those few Amtrak stations located on the junction of two railway lines that requires two platforms to serve the 3 and 3/7 trains per day that stop there in each direction. The Triweekly Cardinal comes in from the west from West Virginia along the Buckingham Branch, a shortline railroad, and crosses the Norfolk Southern Line used by the daily Crescent and the twice-daily Lynchburg/Roanoke Northeast Regional Trains at a grade just before both trains have their separate platforms. The Cardinal, which uses Charlottesville to change crew, (the Crescent waits until Lynchburg) then follows separate trackage via Gordonsville to Orange where it finally joins its other two counterpart Amtrak trains on the Norfolk Southern Line.
According to published timetables (the one effective November 2011) mileage wise the routes are almost the same, the Cardinal to Culpepper is 47 miles while the Crescent route is 44 miles. Time wise though the trackage used by the Cardinal is partially in bad condition and a slower trip taking an hour and 13 or 16 minutes while the Northeast Regional Lynchburger and Crescent can do it in only 52 minutes. A thruway bus connection meets with the Cardinal at Charlottesville, providing connections to Richmond, VA and connecting trains to points south without all the backtracking to and from Washington, DC.
The stations two platforms are on each side of the Amtrak station housed in the Historic Railway Express Agency, with the historic Union Station beyond it having been turned into a restaurant that was a branch of the restaurant chain Wild Wings Cafe before it closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This building was built in 1885, with Amtrak moving out of the original Union Station into the historic Railroad Express Agency Depot in 1999.
Inside the depot is a waiting room with simple black benches. The walls are painted white with a white tiled floor with black accents. One wall contains the ticket office and restrooms. There are doors out of the depot on 3 sides. One set leads out to the Thruway Bus stop (and major portion of the parking lot). The southern set has black lettering and a little logo that says Cardinal and leads almost directly out to its platform. The northern set has lettering for the Crescent, and clearly added later for the Northeast Regional Service (that began in 2009) leads out to a sidewalk to a crosswalk across a portion of the parking lot and out to the Crescent/Northeast Regional platforms.
The two platforms themselves are slightly different, each is low-level and begins either at the directly at the side of the depot in the case of the Cardinal's Platform, or just across a driveway with a parking spaces in front of the depot for the Northeast Regional and Crescent. These platforms each then run northeast, away from the diamond-crossover for the two lines.
The Cardinal's platform is unimproved with just a painted yellow line and no tactile warning strip. It extends from outside the depot to the grade-crossing of 7th Street (that remained down during its service stop in 2015 with the locomotive stopped just before the crossing activating its gates). A small stretch of grass and some trees prevent motorists from parking directly on it with parking spaces just beyond. There are two tracks through the station area, the one that platforms can only continue across the Norfolk Southern tracks, the one that doesn't platform curves south to switch onto the Norfolk Southern main line used by the Crescent and Northeast Regional, these trains in theory could use the slower Buckingham Branch (without skipping any stations).
The Crescent and Northeast Regional platform is along the Norfolk Southern Line with two tracks, although only the tracks closest to the station platform. This platform does have a pink tactile warning strip. It runs from the depot, under the overpass of Main Street that crosses over these train tracks on a bridge, extending northeast. A fence runs the length of the platform, with an opening for passengers at the crosswalk into the main station. There is also a gate towards its northeast end that was just left open when I stepped off the Northeast Regional in 2025. This platform has either parking spaces or a driveway connecting two parking lots (just under the Main Street overpass bridge) along its entire length.
Signage at the station consists of modern silver and blue Amtrak station signs with the modern logo. These are in older style black frames that I assume had the fully and lighter blue and white station name signs after its renovations were completed in 1999, just before Amtrak introduced its new logo.
Photos 1-27 taken on 6 November, 2011; 28-72: September 23, 2015; 73-81: September 7, 2024;
