(The following article by Carla Roccapriore was posted on the Reno Gazette Journal website on December 1.)
RENO, Nevada — Reno’s remodeled downtown train station that will accompany the railroad trench has its certificate of occupancy, but passengers are being bused to the depot in Sparks until the city and Amtrak can finalize a contract both agree on.
“We’re going back and forth in reviewing lease agreements,” said Steve Varela, Reno public works director.
The Truckee Meadows is served by Amtrak’s California Zephyr route, which travels daily between the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago.
Varela said the station got its occupancy certificate last week but was unsure when it would open.
“It’s up to them or us, and if we agree or disagree,” Varela said.
Vernae Graham, an Amtrak spokeswoman in Oakland, reiterated Varela’s statements.
Reno passengers will use the upgraded Amtrak station at Commercial Row and Lake Street. A temporary site at East Second Street and Evans Avenue has been used the past few days to transport Amtrak passengers by bus to and from the Sparks station between the 500 and 600 blocks of Nugget Avenue.
Dru Richardson of Sparks said she dropped her departing relatives off in the Reno station two weeks ago and learned Wednesday that she had to pick them up in Sparks after she went to Reno.
Amtrak’s national phone system that people can call for arrival and departure information wasn’t updated and finding the Sparks station — which has no waiting room — wasn’t easy, she said.
“They should have signs up and directions how to get to this place,” Richardson said. “The national recording needs to be updated.”
Susan Wiley of Reno was among passengers who got off the train Wednesday afternoon in Sparks and boarded a bus to Reno. She said going in and out of Sparks wasn’t ideal, but the bus-to-train transition was smooth.
“It would be absolutely more convenient if it was in Reno,” said Wiley, who was returning from the San Francisco Bay Area. “I could walk to the station if it was in Reno.”
Passenger traffic on Amtrak out of Reno is more than double that out of Sparks.
During the 2005 fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, 2004, and ended Sept. 30, the train station in Reno had 55,288 passengers and the station in Sparks had 21,365, Graham said.