Union Station (Winston-Salem, North Carolina)

Union Station
General information
Location	300 Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Winston-Salem, North Carolina United States
Coordinates	36°5′36″N 80°13′42″W
Owned by	City of Winston-Salem
Transit authority	Winston-Salem Transit Authority
Line(s)	K-line
Tracks	1 (no passenger service)
Bus routes	5
Bus operators	WSTA PART
Connections	Amtrak Thruway
Construction
Structure type	At-grade
Accessible	Yes
Architect	Fellhimer & Wagner; et.al.
Architectural style	Beaux Arts
Other information
Status	Unstaffed
Station code	Amtrak: UWS
Website	Union Station
History
Opened	1926 (1926)
Closed	15 June 1970 (1970-06-15)
Rebuilt	2018-2019
Previous names	Davis Garage
Original company	Winston-Salem Terminal Company
Former services Preceding station Norfolk and Western Railway Following station Terminus Winston-Salem – Roanoke Walkertown toward Roanoke Preceding station Southern Railway Following station Bethania toward North Wilkesboro North Wilkesboro – Morehead City Kernersville toward Morehead City Haynes toward Mooresville Junction Mooresville Junction – Winston-Salem Terminus
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Official name	Union Station
Designated	December 24, 1998
Reference no.	98001547
Architectural style	Beaux Arts
Location

Union Station is a historic train station, currently serving as a bus station, located in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina.

History

The station was built to service the Southern, Norfolk and Western and Winston-Salem Southbound Railways. It was designed by Fellhimer & Wagner and built between 1924 and 1926. It is a one to three story, banked Beaux-Arts style steel frame building faced with brick and limestone. It consists of a rectangular main body, five bays wide and eight bays deep, with a large square east wing. The front facade features a limestone portico supported by paired heroic columns with stylized Corinthian order capitals. Surrounding the building are some surviving original landscape features. The station served as the city's sole passenger train station between 1926 and 1970.

The station was sold to Harvey Davis in 1975, and he converted the building into an automobile repair business called Davis Garage.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Winston-Salem acquired the building in 2012 through eminent-domain, with a long term goal of reestablishing passenger train service to the city. In 2018 the city hired Walter Robbs Callahan & Pierce Architects and New Atlantic Contracting to restore the station, and it had a grand reopening on September 7, 2019.

Services

Union Station currently serves as a secondary bus hub for the Winston-Salem Transit Authority, after the Clark Campbell Transportation Center.

PART's Route 1 stops at the station, and in conjunction with PART's Route 3, serves as an Amtrak Thruway connector to High Point station.

On December 8, 2023, the Federal Railroad Administration included an Amtrak route connecting Winston-Salem to Raleigh into the Corridor Identification and Development Program. The proposed route would include intermediate stops at Greensboro, Burlington, Durham, and Cary, complementing the existing state-supported Piedmont and Carolinian services. The North Carolina Department of Transportation was granted $500,000 toward engineering and feasibility studies for the route.

Station layout

The station has three levels, with the highest level at-grade with Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and the lowest level along Norfolk Southern Railway's K-Line.

The street level, historically known as the concourse level, has the station's waiting room. The middle level is unoccupied, and the city intends on leasing out the space. The city signaling center occupies the station's lowest floor.

External links

• Official website

• Union – Amtrak
• Union – Station history at Great American Stations (Amtrak)
• Local Historic Landmark Program - Union Station