 Effingham, IL | Illini / Saluki | Champaign-Urbana, IL  |
| City of New Orleans |
Mattoon is an unstaffed station on the Illini, Saluki, and City of New Orleans. Trains stop at the historic 1918 Illinois Central Railroad Station, that was built as part of a grade-separation project. This is a three-story red brick building that once hosted a power plant, mail room, luggage room. The depot building is located along Broadway Avenue with a small parking lot just north and east of the station. The upper floors of the station currently house the Mattoon Arts Council, plus what should be two entrances to Trains. The lower level provides the only access to the train platform requiring the building to be open for all train departures and arrivals, although there was no clear caretaker on site, just signs saying that the station is for railroad passengers only with the Mattoon Police department's non-emergency number to call if your ever stuck either on the rail platform or at the station entrance and need to get to and from the train platform.
What should be the main station entrance is along Broadway Avenue. Here there is a grand entrance covered by brickwork extending from the station out to the sidewalk just before the road overpass across Broadway Avenue. A keystone is engraved with I.C.R.R. at the end of the canopy. Entering the station should be via three sets of double doors that lead to a grand staircase down to the train waiting room on the lowest level via two intermediate landings. These doors were locked to passengers entering the building when I visited on a Saturday in July 2025 (yes, the only way down to reach trains when I visited was via the very slow elevator). The staircase doors were luckily still open for exiting (which would otherwise be an extreme fire hazard) if the only way to leave the station via the elevator.
The station has a separate elevator entrance towards the northern end of the building accessed through the small parking lot outside the depot. A modern three panel Mattoon, IL Amtrak information sign sits just outside this entrance. Passengers enter through a set of doors to a little vestibule with some water fountains and a single slow elevator. A very short staircase leads up to another landing on the elevator (that has doors on both sides) to provide access to the main entrance of the Mattoon Arts Council. The elevator contains two doors and services four floors: 1R, 1F* (labeled for the East Exit and Parking lot), M (with a key to turn the floor on and off), and B (labeled for Boarding Area).
The platform level of the station is extremely grand, there are a mixture of white tiled walls and white plasterwork in this large room with tall ceilings, six wooden benches (which are either historical replicas entirely, or have been fitted with arms, the woodwork on the arms is clearly new, forming hostile architecture) provide a grand place to wait for Amtrak trains. There is a single 7-Up soda machine that looks awkward in the historic waiting room. The ticket office has been closed but there is a table an adding machine and a typewriter on display trying to evoke nostalgia at the historic station and would could have been at this office overlooking the train tracks.
A short corridor leads back behind the grand staircase up to the street to a corridor to passenger restrooms and water fountains. The Men's Room stank so badly when I opened thd door when I thought about using it that I didn't try.
Along the opposite wall of the station, closest to the elevator up to street level, is the door to the Coles County Historical Society gallery. This gallery is open on Saturdays 1 to 5pm, with a little sign saying if the museum is open or closed by the elevator at the station entrance.
To reach the train platform multiple sets of doors (although only one was open when I visited) lead out to an exposed but recently rebuilt low-level side platform along the west track of a two track railroad line through the station area. The platform extends between (but not entering under) the overpasses of Richmond Avenue and Broadway Street that cross over the train trains located inside an open-cut.
This platform has modern black lampposts and a tactile warning strip. It dips in a couple of places to provide two boarding areas so trains could stop on the opposite track if they ever need too. At the northern end is an emergency exit that just leads to a concrete pad just beyond the platform in some woods. Passenger amenities consist of three few wooden benches with one outside the depot, and two more farther north along the platform and the grassy knoll of the embankment it is along.
Signage along the platform is multiple modern Amtrak logo with blue text on Grey signs for Mattoon, IL. These are both on the platform, with some on the opposite side of the tracks, helping passengers know their station stop. A single oddly format square sign says Mattoon Depot in all capital letters. There are also the modern braille signs after the station's ADA platform renovation. Finally, black lettering on the side of the depot spells out Illinois Central Railroad.
Photos 1-111: July 5, 2025
