Randolph station is an Amtrak train station in Randolph, Vermont, United States. The only train that serves the station is the Vermonter, which operates between St. Albans, Vermont and Washington, D.C.[5] The former depot building contains a market and restaurant. On the other side of the tracks is the depot for a non-profit bus company, Tri-Valley Transit, [6] essentially creating an unofficial intermodal transportation center.[7] However, the schedules of the two systems are not aligned in any way.
History
The station, circa 1915
The Vermont Central Railroad was chartered to build a line along the Connecticut River to Lake Champlain, which was to include service to Randolph. The original station was not built until 1848, by which time the VCRR was acquired by the Central Vermont Railway. By the late-1870s (although signs on the depot suggest 1881), Central Vermont moved the original depot and built a new one, converting the VCRR station into a freight house. When Central Vermont was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1896, the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, a subsidiary of Canadian National Railway bought the railroad and the station out and kept it afloat throughout most of the 20th Century.
Both passenger and freight service ended in Randolph in 1966. A group of volunteers later restored the stations and the surrounding area, including converting the second station into a café and restaurant.
Randolph Station became a contributing property to the Depot Square Historic District since 1975. In the 1990s, local leaders began lobbying Amtrak to make Randolph a new railroad stop, even going so far as to rebuild the original VCRR freight depot into a bus depot for Randolph Stagecoach Transportation, now Tri-Valley Transit. Amtrak began using the station as a stop on the Vermonter in 1996.
