 Cleveland, OH | Lake Shore Limited | Buffalo-Depew, NY  |
Eire, PA is the only intermediate station on the 187 mile stretch between Buffalo-Depew and Cleveland of the Lake Shore Limited not shared with Capitol Limited (now Floridian) or Empire Service Trains. Erie sees service from the Lake Shore Limited and has always been served by just the Lake Shore Limited in the Amtrak era. This is included the station not receiving any service during the Lake Shore's suspension between 1972 and 1975.
Due to the on-again off-again nature of train service in the early years and the disrepair of Union Station, Erie (a city of about a hundred thousand) has never been a staffed station, and consequently never had checked baggage service.
The station has always just been opened and closed (as it is to this day) by a caretaker working the graveyard shift between Midnight and 8:00am for the middle of the night Lake Shore Limited stops.
Trains have always and currently stop at the historic Art Deco Union Station which was dedicated on December 3, 1927. The station became derelict in the 1970s and was mostly abandoned. In the early 2000s, a private company rebuilt the station. This converted the upper floors of the station into office space.
The former passenger rotunda (including ticket offices and main waiting area) was turned into a brewery. The building is extremely large, once housing divisional staff for a large stretch of the New York Central Railroad.
Amtrak trains currently use a small annex next door, next to a number of local shops, in the former freight area of the station. After passing through glass doors from the street, passengers arrive by going through the double-doors into an outer vestibule with a couple benches to allow an indoor place for passengers to wait for rides and the like. This is the last area where passengers boarding trains will see daylight until just after the train arrives and they are ushered up to the platform by the station's caretaker.
After turning to the left passengers enter the main waiting room. This is a room with three large wooden (and non-hostile!) old fashioned benches. The walls are painted white on their upper three-quarters, there a wooden paneled lower section painted brown. The ceiling isn't historic looking with just white acoustic tile.
Along the west wall of the building is what looks like a ticket office/ticket window and a door that states authorized personnel only. Next to the ticket window are doors into the separate men's and women's s restrooms. There is a little built in counter with paperwork to fill out if your trying to do long-term parking at the station and a sign: “Notice: Amtrak Long Term Parking: See station caretaker for instructions.”
To board trains, the southeast corner of the depot (same side as the entrance to the waiting room from the street, but the opposite corner) contains a short corridor that leads to a set of double doors. This corridor is blocked by a chain that states "Do No Enter Without Station Attendants Help. Thank You." The attendant even turned off the light to the corridor after he ushered me out of the station, not letting me photograph the Lake Shore Limited departing (he was otherwise friendly, not telling me I couldn't take pictures, but didn’t want to lock me out of the station from the platform).
Next to this very not historic corridor is a historic boarding gate pillar that has been preserved. The top of it has a now (no longer functional) light with the blue New York Central System, and red Pennsylvania Railroad Keystone logos. Instead of train information, today it a panel discussing the City of Erie's Railroad History, including service from the Water Level Route of the New York Central and as the terminus of Pennsylvania Railroad train service to and from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia (all ended by 1965). It also states that the station originally had 11 tracks, 10 through tracks, and one terminating track.
To board trains passengers go through the double-doors and into a generic corridor with acoustic tile ceiling and white walls. This leads up a gentle (ADA compliant) ramp with railings on either side before turning 90 degrees under the tracks. There is a hint of marble and some sealed openings in the walls.
This area in the middle of the boarding corridor contains Blue with a grey line Amtrak directional signage along this including a large sign in the middle of the corridor for trains or Exit, and Restrooms/Ground transportation logos in one direction and elevators, stairs, and the ADA logo in the other.
Once under the primarily used low-level island platform (closest to Union Station, there is another island platform without access but still a canopy just beyond) an elevator on the east side and a staircase on the west side leads up to the platform. These arrive in a green enclosure since the platforms have been given a historic restoration.
Trains stop at one of two low-level island platforms on the railroad embankment. These run between the bridges over Sassafras Street (to the west) and Peach Street. These are the same streets that Union Station runs between alongside 14th Street. The main northern island platform has its historic metal green canopy structure fully restored, with the entire platform except at its extreme ends under covered. The second platform has only a small rebuilt section (trains don't normally stop here but can) with the rest of this platform's canopy looking derelict and abandoned. Passengers reach the main platform via an elevator or staircase from the waiting area below. A pedestrian crossing provides access to the secondary island platform.
At the western end of this platform is a sealed off elevator tower that once led to the freight and mail tunnel. There are four additional elevator towers that make it clear (as the information panel states) that the station once had ten through tracks at 5 island platforms.
Signage on the platforms at the station when I visited by car in 2017 was just a couple small Amtrak logo (not pointless arrow) signs on the platform. When I finally got off a train in 2025 at Erie, the platform had gotten some work done on it. Lots of modern blue text on grey Amtrak Erie, PA signs now hang from the platform’s historic canopy. The station had also clearly been repainted from the view I was able to get looking through the door into the station in 2017, with a brighter entrance area now with benches that are now there in 2024 but weren’t there in 2017.
Photos 1-31 taken on 26 November, 2017 on a visit by automobile. 32-101: July 25, 2025 (getting off the Lake Shore Limited!)
