September 25, 2009
After three months of construction, a train station in the central part of Washington State was officially opened. Icicle Station is located just one mile (1.6 kilometers) northeast of the downtown area of the city of Leavenworth. This station is served by the Amtrak-operated Empire Builder, a daily long-distance passenger train that travels west to Seattle and east to Chicago.
The station, which is owned and managed by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway, was named after what had been the original designation for present-day Leavenworth. As far back as the 1880s, homesteaders flocking to this region of the Pacific Northwest called their settlement “Icicle Flats.” They derived this name from a nearby waterway that was known as “Icicle Creek.” The decision was made well over a century later to name the station in honor of those pre-Leavenworth settlers.
The public debut of Icicle Station was commemorated with great enthusiasm by more than 200 area residents who showed up at the facility on the evening of September 25, 2009, to celebrate the long-awaited occasion. Those in attendance were treated to coffee, cider, cheese-and-crackers, and – as a nod to the longtime Bavarian cultural ambience of Leavenworth – plenty of German sausage. The festivities also included musical performances and a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“This is absolutely one of the highlights of Leavenworth,” proclaimed local hotel owner Gary Thebault. “It opens us up to the whole world. Chicago, the Eastern seaboard, Spokane, Seattle. It’s an alternative, particularly in Seattle. They don’t want to fight the roads to get here, so now they have an alternative, and so do we.” Leavenworth city councilman Peter DeVries sounded a similarly approving tone. “It’s pretty exciting,” he remarked. “This is a great evening and I can’t wait to hear that train whistle.”
Fellow local resident Marreeth Alford commented, “I’m delighted that the train is coming to Leavenworth. I am delighted at the turnout here. Everyone looks wonderful, everybody’s happy and everybody on the train is happy, I just talked to them.”
The key features of Icicle Station include a 600-foot (180-meter)-long platform; two covered shelters; a structure with a waiting room; 20 short-term parking spaces; and a bicycle rack. (The accompanying photo of one of the covered shelters was taken in 2010.)
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on Icicle Station (also known as Leavenworth Station), please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icicle_Station
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