A town of about 7,400 population, situated 24 miles east of Harrisburg and 12 miles west of Lancaster, Pa., Mount Joy is served by eight eastbound trains and 11 westbound trains out of total of 14 weekday trains each way. About 45,000 passengers use the station each year. Annual Amtrak ridership on the entire corridor now exceeds 1.4 million passengers.
New facilities include two 500-foot-long high-level platforms connected by dual weather-enclosed elevator/stair towers and a covered walkway along South Market Street where it crosses over the double-track electrified main line.
Also included in the plan is an improved state Route 772 (Marietta Pike) bridge over the railroad, which slices through town in a 30-foot-deep cut. The cut dates to 1896, when the original alignment on the south side of Main Street was abandoned.
Because the tracks are generally hidden from street-level view, Amtrak service has been largely invisible to area residents until now. The elevator/stair towers now rise well above street level, bringing a new profile and a much more prominent profile to that part of town.
Site improvements include covered walkways for parking areas, landscaping, and slope stabilization, as well as improvements and expansions that bring the total to 112 parking spaces. Parking is free.
The elevator/stair towers feature large glass windows throughout, decorated with etched images of the English merchant ship Mountjoy, for which the town is named. Platforms feature canopies, lighting, benches, emergency-alert kiosks, and direct access to and from street level on both sides.
Construction began in 2016 and concluded over the weekend. The station is part of a $400 million package of improvements to the Keystone Corridor paid for by Amtrak, PennDOT, and the Federal Transit Administration. New station facilities have already been built at Elizabethtown (a $9 million job that included restoration of a historic station building), Exton, and Paoli, while upgraded facilities have been added at Coatesville, Downingtown, and Lancaster.
A new $24 million station is planned for Middletown, with connections to the adjacent Harrisburg International Airport. This requires moving Norfolk Southern’s Royalton Branch – which has already begun – as well as reconfiguring the double-track Amtrak line to accommodate a center-island high-level platform.
Pennsylvania spent a few dollars for a better station.
What a change from when I used to ride to Harrisburg with only one vestibule open for passengers to get on and off the trains. It will de great when they finish the Exton station.