ABANDONED Texas Train Station Untouched For 50 Years

[@Austin8thGenTexan]

I love historic train stations! My mother was a cheerleader at Texas High School in Texarkana (1950s) and dated former presidential candidate Ross Perot (my grandfather was their family dentist) 🦷

[@MythionVR]

Those chandeliers gave me straight up anxiety with the drone flyby lmao. This is such a good use of the drone, great video Keith!

[@LouisBourett]

Used to take the train between Arlington and Texarkana to see my grandparents. Many fond memories

[@lynnestamey7272]

I love trains and train stations! The one in the town where I live is being used as the offices and parking area for the local county transit system that people can use for medical appointments to Dallas 30 miles away. They also run local transport as available on regular routes to the public. The train station in the next little town to the east is available for rent for functions like showers, little parties and very small receptions (60 people max). It's delightful because the trains pass by all the time, although they don't stop.

[@brucehain]

It's a disgrace. Notice that 1971 was the year the station closed, and that was the year Amtrak took over, and decided to move out. They moved out of A LOT of train stations shortly following the takeover, including St. Louis, which is one of our greatest stations, yet not served by regularly scheduled trains and largely blocked off. They planned to move out of both Washington Union station and Grand Central. They did succeed in abandoning Grand Central while it was still quite vulnerable to whims of investors who wanted to build a tower in it's place. Washington Union Station in DC went through a very rough patch in the early '70 when they dug a huge hole in the middle of the Main Waiting Room to use as exhibit space for the Bicentennial Celebration. (No one was interested in the video presentation they expected people to stand through, and the exhibit closed within its first year of operation. Many station Amtrak left at that time suffered still-not-repaired damage, like Cincinatti and Kansas City. It's really unforgivable.

[@AmericanAbandoned]

WOW! That's horrific, it's sad to see what can happen when companies like that take over :(

[@gregsells8549]

Amtrak didn't begin serving Texarkana until 1973, when the Inter-American was expanded from Fort Worth to St. Louis. According to Wikipedia, the city of Texarkana, Arkansas, approved $200,000 in 2023 toward acquiring the station.

[@MarceloBenoit-trenes]

Grand Central was never owned by Amtrak. Amtrak left because it was practical and cheaper to send all trains to Penn Station. Kansas City is again a train station despite most of it is not operated by the company.

[@MarceloBenoit-trenes]

@@AmericanAbandoned the issue is that Amtrak tried to get costs down and because of that they abandoned several big stations. However, after some decades and city development, several stations returned to service.

[@brucehain]

@@MarceloBenoit-trenes Kansas City they demolished all the station tracks (10 or 12 of them) and the platforms, and built a skyscraper next to the now-useless passenger bridge, which serves to block the station permanently. On reopening they built a platform out in the freight runaround about 750' from the concourse. (seems deliberate in many respects.) I never said GCT was owned by Amtrak. I think there were three credible threats to demolish it in my lifetime. Jackie Onassis won her famous court case in '76. Now they have an unflattering relief portrait of her (unflattering mostly to the artist) inside the central entrance at 42nd Street. In some cases presence on state and national registers both at once doesn't prevent demolition if the building's in private hands. The MTA finally bought GCT two or three years ago, and immediately sold off the air rights to benefit a building which dwarfs this best-in-class of a very distinguished class of buildings to insignificance; blocks its Guastsavino-vaulted taxi stand which is now a permanent latrine; and forces all the taxis out onto 42nd street where they line up three lanes thick and must have traffic controllers to maintain order. For that they got a stair and a partly-renovated subway entrance: that was "the deal". There is to be another, bigger building on the other side. The current over-tall, over-large building (because it doesn't jibe with the all-30-stories except New York Central Tower scheme) is owned by the same people who bought the Lincoln Building across the street - then renamed it "Two Grand Central Plaza" - and sold off the statue of Lincoln and a big bronze plaque with a fine sample his prose on it, which had held a commanding presence in the large open alcove of the building's main entrance for something like 75 years, for all to see and enjoy. I hate them.

[@ronaldbrooks5982]

This is such a shame, beautiful old architecture. The whole downtown is in shambles, it's a shame. Walmart came to town, the town went down.

[@AmericanAbandoned]

It really is! There felt like so much history and potential everywhere down there. I've been to Texarkana numerous time but never ventured that way and was blown away by how much had just been....left to die.

[@HoboKentKruegrer]

Central Mall was one of the main factors .

[@gordonjustin4787]

This Train Station has to be fixed up. It could be made into a museum or library. It was a good Video. Thank You

[@dariusneal9495]

With the investments in U.S. transportation it needs to be restored for passenger service. Thankyou for bringing attention to my station. There's nothing I'd like to see more than a Missouri Pacific service reestablished to other towns and cities!

[@jchoward6451]

Many of those train stations were done in art deco style. I visited the station in Omaha, was beautiful, but it's been kept up. This one must have been quite a sight in its day too. I enjoyed the tour, thanks for posting!

[@machinegundroner9411]

DUDE I love your drone work. Thanks for the inspiration.

[@AmericanAbandoned]

Thank you so much! Hope you take it and run with it :D

[@scottrandall2019]

Awesome video of my hometown. At the 2:17 mark you show the stairway into the main atrium. If you would have had the chance to walk up those stairs you would find that they are made of marble. However, due to the immense foot traffic through the years. the marble was worn and the stairs had smooth indentions from the traffic. Think about how many footsteps that had to walk over those stairs to wear solid marble down like that. Thank you for this wonderful video!

[@HardRockMaster7577]

I loved the 4K drone footage. Being inside the station was so much fun. It reminded me of exploring a place in a video game! I wish that you could tell us, in the Train Station's heyday, how many passenger trains came through. One more thing, I love watching the images even at the end of your video. What I wish you wold do for your videos, is to add an ending video for the 10-15 seconds the pop-up on screen links show, so as not to cover up what's at the end of the video at hand.

[@AmericanAbandoned]

Fantastic feedback, thank you so much!

[@lyonadimral]

You don't have to revitalize the entire building at once; just one section at a time into useful space.

[@Austin8thGenTexan]

The roof, the roof! Make sure it doesn't leak (those flat, tar paper roofs are hell to maintain) Seeing all the puddles on the floor is very discouraging for the future of this building... 🥀

[@bender7565]

Mr. Drone!! Amazing skills, well done!

[@HFD96SD99]

Amazing building!! They can turn it into a conference center. It needs to be preserved.

[@trainglen22]

Wondering if there is a way to save this beautiful station as a history museum or better yet a train station.

[@robertdehlinger6531]

Us we'd dzy Used fzily

[@centredoorplugsthornton4112]

Google Texarkana Arkansas Amtrak station. Amtrak uses the former baggage facility at the station. They decided 50 years ago the main station was too big and not handicapped accessible. Of course a proposal to take over the whole station and restore it to its old glory. Cost way more than the $388,000 and change in Amtrak ticket sales at Texarkana fiscal 2023.

[@ClancyWoodard-yw6tg]

They also have an abandoned train station in Liberty TX

[@amfm889]

While I appreciate your drawing attention to this beautiful station I would hope that the building is secured to prevent more vandalism.

[@rgj8044]

Whaat an appalling waste of such a huge investment by all the workers who toiled to build such a classic structure. So disrespectful to just trash such a magnificent place. My opinion.

[@NordyFPV]

What a cool place to fly around in!

[@tammybunn1968]

My home town!

[@cilldublin07]

Would make a fantastic micro brewery bar & restaurant

[@Society2day]

1929 that was in todays world i still cant believe that this was not that long ago.

[@Itsaboutthewaterlife]

Slick. You were driving a drone.

[@Allen-ye6wy]

The graffiti is disgusting

[@AmericanAbandoned]

it really is, I have a constant debate of trying to 'blur' it out but I keep coming back to preserving it in time because it's just the way it is.

[@stischer47]

How sad that the cities don't fix it up.

[@blainedunlap8571]

very cool, though for my money, would have done your final shot slower- like, why are you in a hurry? Trying to catch a train? hahahah- seriously lovely stuff

[@josephteller9715]

What a waste of a space and a building. This could easily be turned into other things if they really don't need a station. It would make a wonderful Art venue with working artist studios on the upper levels and a grand small performance space below etc. Texas, always lacks people of vision and money to make things better.

[@MarceloBenoit-trenes]

Or better... share the building to share costs.

[@rongreen8962]

Gasoline is dirt cheap and always has been. There will never again be public transportation in this country, any more than there’ll be universal health care.

[@BLACKMONGOOSE13]

High end apartments

[@ronclark9724]

Unfortunately this building is too large for Amtrak's two daily trains of the Texas Eagle. If both cities refuse to her former glory, and maybe convert it into a convention or conference center, better to demolish it and build a small depot suitable for two daily trains...Presently it is a eye score and frankly a dangerous derelict...

[@Kevin-wj4ed]

Call ford they will buy it!!!!!!!!!!

[@btudrus]

american car-centric "culture"...

[@rdyred5080]

Save it!