 Ashland, KY | Cardinal | Charleston, WV  |
Huntington, WV is the one crew change point and fresh air stop in the entire state of West Virginia as well as the first the Cardinal makes after entering from Kentucky as the whistle stop train through serving many small towns only tri-weekly. Trains stop in both directions (Westbound in the late evening and eastbound in the early morning) on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This town is right along the Ohio River across from Chesapeake, Ohio and just after the station the Cardinal leaves the Ohio River behind when it curves north and starts running towards Charleston and the heart of West Virginia.
The stop has a small staffed with baggage services provided station house that is completely non-descript. It is a small one built by Amtrak of 1983 vintage with cinderblock windows few walls and black flat roof. Inside are beige walls restrooms with odd font painted signs dictating men and women, a small ticket office and a few rows of black leather chairs. There is also a new looking flat screen TV and a satellite dish outside for reception, as well as a pepsi machine. A small felt board with plastic letters on the walls tells of the times of the Cardinals tri-weekly departures. The station has odd hours around the 6 weekly trains that stop and is open Sunday, Wednesday, and Fridays from 5:45am to 11:45am and 4:30pm to 10:00pm. The stop recently received a minimal amount of modern signage and all references to the pointless arrow are gone.
Street access to the station is from a decent sized parking lot set back from 8 Avenue between 10 and 11 Street just beyond 10 Street's underpass of the railroad tracks. The entrance to the parking lot has a modern Huntington Station sign that says to call for information, and there is a single set of doors from it into the station house. The actual train platform is on the edge of a freight rail yard and alongside the parking lot with separate doors out from the station house. This platform has no signage except for a single modern Huntington, WV sign on the station house facing the platform. It is made out of concrete and is at track level with a simple yellow line and no tactile warning strip. The single Cardinal P42 Locomotive pulls up to one end of it and only four more cars (including the baggage) car can platform. The rest of the train when going eastbound is sprawled across the underpass for 10 Street. Just east of the station in a fenced off dilapidated yard some old passenger rail cars that have seen better days are visible.
All photos taken on 6 November, 2011
