Station Review #18: Coatesville (AMTRAK) (Old)


Coatesville (COT) is an Amtrak train station located in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, with service from Amtrak's Keystone Service line. Coatesville is a real gem, one of the best stati- oh why should I sugarcoat the truth or lie? Coatesville is absolutely horrible. This is possibly one of the worst stations I have ever reviewed. It's up there with beauties such as Eddington and North Broad. 


History

Postcard from 1920

But first, a history lesson. Coatesville started out in the 1830s, a station on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, which later became the PRR. This was on the line called the "Main Line" by the PRR. The building was built in 1868, and now lays disused.

The history of this station goes on the same as the line itself, for a long while. Even as the car became more popular, COT still was doing well as a station as Coatesville as a whole was a city anchored on steel, something that employed the city well since the late 1700s. Over time, this employed less and less people, among other industries that were a bulwark against poverty in Coatesville. Along with the rest of the town, the station slowly lost ridership because a decreasing amount of people wanted to live in or go to and from Coatesville. 

For a short period, this changed as SEPTA started running service on its Parkesburg line through Coatesville in 1990. This did not last very long, and by 1996, the line was scaled back to Downingtown, before later having service sent further west to Thorndale, just east of Coatesville. 

In 2013, a renovation was attempted, before that was abandoned. Once again, Coatesville station was left to rot. 

Tour

The station building in 2022

On the outside, the station house looks fairly unassuming, a boarded-up red building next to a train line. Upon closer inspection, there are stairs, which are the only entrance to the station, Coatesville is not accessible. 

Stairway to hell

Up the stairs are the real breadcrumbs of the station, shown below.

Most of this place is an asphalt platform. There is a canopy you can wait under, but it's rotting and falling apart as we speak. 

There's also a lonely bench under said wooden canopy, with a jacket someone probably left a long while back that probably will not be there by the next time I visit. 

Closeup on the bench

It all doesn't stop there, though. If we look at the other side of the station, you don't see much. That's because all that's there is a bench. It's Neshaminy Falls but worse. 

Bench

But, we probably shouldn't distract ourselves from one of the main issues with the station: the station house. A good point to examine about the station house is the area on the outside where the maps are. 

Maps on a bulletin board

It gets worse when you look at them close up, as shown below: 

The red splotch is there for a good reason, which I'll explain in a moment

They very obviously took a screenshot of a map and printed it out

They took JPEGs off of the internet and then put them on a wall. these are useless, if you try to look closer to get more information, it gets too pixelated to do so.  Also, the red splotch on the SEPTA map (ignoring the fact that Coatesville station hasn't had SEPTA service since 1996) is graffiti, some of it explicit, some of it something worse.

You see, all over the station house wall, someone wrote a lot of personal identifying info of someone else (info that shouldn't be out there) with words like "free money" among other things, and they did this multiple times. In my opinion, that is an absolutely awful thing to do to someone else, who just got their life ruined because of that. 

That all aside, there is one other thing about the station house that vexxes me. Simply put, the windows. 

This is possibly the worst thing that could be put up on the windows. "Ooh, here's a drawing of the insides of a train station to replace the real station we don't want you to go into!" 

The door into the station is also covered by a fake door, as well! It just feels infuriating to see all of this, rather than boards, or the actual insides of the station house. 

This Station's Future

Site of new station's construction

There is a new station being constructed across the street. That should finish in 2025 or so (might be wishful thinking, in all honesty) and when it does, the current station will most likely be demolished, or at least completely abandoned. It's unfortunate, considering the age of the station building, but at this point, it's currently not doing much better. When the new station opens, I will review that. 

Bus Connections

135 bus stop in Coatesville 

There are two bus connections within a 5-minute walk: 

SEPTA Route 135: West Chester Transportation Center to West Coatesville via Downingtown and Thorndale

ChescoBus Coatesville Link: Brandywine YMCA to Parkesburg

Points of Interest around Coatesville Station


Route 135 bus in Downtown Coatesville

There are a couple of points of interest around Coatesville station:

• Downtown Coatesville, which has a few shops and other interesting things

• The view from the station. This is a pretty nice view, though it could be better

The view

• The National Iron and Steel Heritage Museum, which is a museum that does tours around places such as the old Lukens Steel mill, among other nearby areas, highlighting Coatesville's steel-making legacy. 

Lukens Steel Locomotive 

• The West Branch Brandywine Creek waterfront and nearby Gateway Park

Amenity Checklist:


Some vestige of accessibility: ×
Clean: × 
Connections to other transit routes: ✓ 
Easy passage to either side: × 
Fare Payment Kiosks: ×
Adequate Lighting: × 
Maps: ×, since they're unreadable 
Adequate Parking: ~
Shelters: × 
Seating: ✓ 
Station in Good Condition: ×
Train Departure/Arrival Info: ×
Updated Signage: ×

Final Verdict: 0.3/10


I seriously debated giving this a zero, which would put it with Eddington, but spite won in the end. 

Station Directory
--------Pennsylvania--------
--------Dauphin County--------
Harrisburg (HAR)
Middletown (MID)
--------Lancaster County--------
Elizabethtown (ELT)
Mount Joy (MJY)
Lancaster (LNC)
--------Chester County--------
Parkesburg (PAR)
Coatesville (COT)
Exton (EXT)
Paoli (PAO)
--------Montgomery County--------
Ardmore (ARD)
--------Philadelphia County--------
30th Street (PHL)
--------Bucks County--------
Cornwell's Heights (CWH)
--------New Jersey--------
--------Mercer County--------
Trenton Transit Center (TRE)
Princeton Junction (PJC)
--------Middlesex County--------
New Brunswick (NBK)
MetroPark (MET)
--------Union County--------
Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
Newark Pennsylvania (NWK)
--------New York--------
--------Manhattan Borough--------
New York Penn (NYP) 

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