 Richmond-Main St, VA | Amtrak Virginia: Northeast Regional | Newport News, VA  |
Williamsburg is an intermediate stop on the two daily Newport News Northeast Regional roundtrips. Newport New which was the only and most southern terminus of Northeast Corridor trains until service to Lynchburg started in 2009. The station is walking distance from Colonial Williamsburg, a living history museum, and the College of William and Mary, the second oldest college in the United States.
Trains stop at the Williamsburg Transportation Center. This means the station is shared with local Intercity buses. It is the main pulse point for Williamsburg Area Transit Authority (WATA) Buses. The bus loop is very simple. Buses stop on either side of a brick island between the station's driveway (that connects Boundary Street with Armistead Street) and the small parking area along the southeast end of the platform.
The rest of the area between the platform and the station's driveway is taken up by the station's Federal style single story station house. This brick building has a gabled roof and portico with columns at the street entrance. Inside is a waiting room and still open Amtrak ticket office.
The interior of the waiting room contains brick walls, a coffered ceiling, and a brown tiled floor that looks a little dated. There are two sections of seating, via two- and three-seater sections of benches that face each other like a living room, that are on the edges of area rugs with green and floral patterns. Some black and white photographs line the walls. The ticket office itself is under an arched opening in the walls with “Train Tickets” etched in gold above the windows. A corridor opposite the ticket office leads to vending machines and bathrooms.
To reach trains, the station house leads out to a wider covered porch, that connects to a longer 3 car long white and flat roofed canopy structure. This canopy structure runs above a brick platform type of area with a white picket fence along the edge of it. Just beyond this fence is a very simple just pavement with a yellow line low-level platform that leads to the station's one track. The station originally had originally had two tracks with another track running alongside and closer to the platform canopy. This was removed at some point after 1978.
There is an area with a random disconnected track just west of the exit from the station house between the buliding and the platform canopy. I think a train car used to be on display here.
All station signs are extremely simple with black serif signs with Williamsburg written in all caps and a black border.
Photos 1-29: August 22, 2024 as I stepped off the Northeast Regional waiting for the connecting thruway bus from Virigina Beach after we left the new Newport News station (for the media) on time.
