Maricopa station

Maricopa is an Amtrak train station at 19427 North John Wayne Parkway in Maricopa, Arizona in Pinal County, Arizona, United States. Passenger rail service is provided thrice-weekly in each direction by the Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle. Maricopa was added as a stop after Amtrak was forced to withdraw from Union Station in Phoenix due to deteriorated track conditions on a secondary Union Pacific Railroad line which diverged from the mainline to serve Phoenix.[2] Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach Service is provided from the Maricopa Amtrak Station to/from Phoenix and Tempe.

Maricopa, AZ
Former California Zephyr dome car at the station
Location19427 N. John Wayne Pkwy
Maricopa, AZ 85239
United States
Coordinates33.056353°N 112.047372°W / 33.056353; -112.047372
Owned byAmtrak and Pinal County
Line(s)Union Pacific Railroad
Platforms1 side platform
Tracks2
ConnectionsAmtrak Thruway Motorcoach:
Stagecoach Express
to Tempe station, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
Other information
Station codeMRC
History
Opened1996
Passengers
201711,849[1]  5.32%
Services
Preceding station Amtrak Following station
Yuma
toward Los Angeles
 Sunset Limited Tucson
toward New Orleans
Texas Eagle Tucson
toward Chicago

The station used to display a Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad dome car, The Silver Horizon (car #375).[3] The dome car served as the station office, but proved unsuitable. It has since been replaced by the former Tucson, Arizona station building, a double-wide modular trailer coach train. The dome car was moved from the station to a location 0.25-mile (0.40 km) down the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway on January 10, 2019 to facilitate construction on the adjacent Arizona State Route 347.[4]

Arizona State Route 347 is located adjacent to the station. Due to the rescheduling of Amtrak service from the overnight hours to the morning rush hour in the eastbound direction, the train must make four separate stops in order to load and unload passengers due to the short length of the station platform. The city of Maricopa and Union Pacific Railroad studied moving the station west onto city-owned property and building a siding for the train for a cost of $4.2 million, that was to be paid for by various state, regional, and Gila River Indian Community funds.[5][6] The move turned out to be infeasible after the cost burden was shifted primarily to the city, however, and was canceled in favor of the SR 347 overpass project which was funded with grants received from the federal government, as well as in part by the City of Maricopa, the Arizona Department of Transportation, and the Union Pacific Railroad.[7]

References
  1. "Amtrak Fact Sheet, FY2017, State of Arizona" (PDF). Amtrak. November 2017. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  2. State of Arizona 2007 Railroad Inventory and Assessment: A final report to the Arizona Department of Transportation, page 91 (accessed December 12, 2008)
  3. A short history of our Maricopa station. Archived 2013-08-25 at the Wayback Machine Amtrak's Texas Eagle (URL accessed September 17, 2006).
  4. "Crews Move Historic Rail Car for Maricopa Overpass Project". 2019-01-29.
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-12-05. Retrieved 2012-09-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-07-12. Retrieved 2012-09-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. Yankus, David (2016-07-20). "Plan changes for Maricopa overpass". Casa Grande Dispatch.


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