Historic Utah train depot, left without passengers for nearly 3 decades, may see return to service

Ogden • On a recent brisk Wednesday morning, bundled-up commuters hustled to catch a southbound FrontRunner train from Ogden Central Station. They didn’t stop to linger on the station’s exposed concrete platform; the train was already there waiting for them and they intended to get on it as quickly as possible, lured by heated cars and free WiFi.

Just over their shoulders, the iconic 1924 Ogden Union Station dwarfed its modern counterpart. The elegant depot, built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, features a grand lobby with towering 56-foot ceilings and murals celebrating the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. At its peak, the building served 60 passenger trains a day.

But since May 11, 1997 — when Amtrak’s Pioneer service departed for the final time — no train has picked up riders at the station.

Now, Ogden officials want to bring passenger rail back to the historic depot — equipped with a warm waiting room and other amenities for riders — in Utah’s Junction City.

“It’s viewed, and we treat it, as the heart of our downtown,” city spokesperson Mike McBride said. “It’s why Ogden exists, and it’s unique to our city, and our residents cherish that space as something that needs to be preserved.”

Returning a century-old icon to service

Currently, Union Station operates as a cultural hub for Ogden, hosting events and a handful of beloved museums. The city owns the property after buying it from Union Pacific in 2022. As part of a citywide planning process, officials are reimagining the western edge of downtown Ogden, and McBride said residents have made one thing clear: They want Union Station to be a transit hub with rail service again.

After Amtrak stopped serving Ogden, the city went without any passenger trains until 2008, when the Utah Transit Authority’s FrontRunner debuted, whisking riders into Salt Lake City. But that line runs to Ogden Central, about a block and a half north of Union Station.

Moving the FrontRunner platform south to Union Station would be the easiest way to return service. The commuter rail line is now well-used, and the transit authority is planning to soon run trains every 15 minutes at peak times.

Reopening Union Station to rail service would offer riders some immediate improvements, including restrooms and a warmer space to wait for trains.

“A restroom might be nice,” FrontRunner rider Dave Hancey, who commutes from Brigham City, said before hopping on a train one chilly November morning. “Sometimes I regret leaving the house without taking care of it.”

Creating a gateway to 25th Street

Commuters and Ogden residents seem to agree that restoring service would make good use of downtown’s architectural crown jewel. The depot would also allow for easier access to 25th Street, the city’s main pedestrian and commercial drag.

“I like 25th Street,” rider and Ogdenite Michael Harrison said. “It’s nice to be around some of those historic pieces of Ogden that they’ve already invested in. You can see they’ve worked on making it nice.”

The historic depot sits just across busy Wall Avenue from the bars, restaurants, record stores and coffee shops that dot 25th Street. Ogden officials are hoping to slow down traffic at this intersection and make it safer for pedestrians to cross.

“I would love to see that train service come through and drop people off,” Ogden Downtown Alliance Executive Director Reide Thompson said, “improving the accessibility [for] folks coming to Ogden and getting to see all of the wonderful small businesses and special events that are hosted in the downtown area.”

Thompson also wants city officials to keep the station’s two art galleries and three museums — the Utah State Railroad Museum, the Browning Firearms Museum and the Browning-Kimball Car Museum — open nearby.

Ogden’s concept for the neighborhood includes keeping the museums next door to the station. Redeveloping the area could make it a more attractive place to work, live and visit, said Mike Christensen, executive director of the Utah Rail Passengers Association.

“There’s an opportunity to do multiple things where we’re actually using the Union Station as a train station again, which just makes sense,” Christensen said. “And we are also redeveloping all of those parking lots into things that hopefully will be a much more beneficial thing to the city of Ogden.”

He noted that UTA’s parking lots at Ogden Central and in front of Union Station don’t generate any tax revenue, for example. The city’s proposal for the area includes building over many of these parking lots with housing, retail space and a hotel.

While Christensen said he believes the city will include parking as a part of any redevelopment around the station, concepts released by planners show little surface parking.

“There’s better parking down here, for me, anyway,” Hancey, the Brigham City rider, said of the current station. “I think it’d be more crowded up there.”

Many passengers park at the Ogden Central surface lot before hopping on a train, but even at peak commute times, scores of spots remain open. A slew of bus routes also flow into the station, including UTA’s Ogden Express rapid transit line.

Harrison, the Ogden commuter, was concerned that it would be harder for people transferring to buses to do so if trains let riders off half a mile away from the current bus pads. He said people often run to catch a bus after getting off the platform.

A push for 2034

For its part, UTA said it has discussed possible future service with Ogden for years but cautioned that the change would be complicated.

“Any relocation of FrontRunner service from Ogden Central to Union Station — about a half-mile to the south — would require adequate funding, careful planning and close coordination to address operational and infrastructure needs,” spokesperson Gavin Gustafson said in a statement.

Equally important, Gustafson said, are the bus transfers that happen at the existing station, which connect about a million people a year.

Preserving and supporting those links, he said, “would be a central consideration in any future conversation.”

McBride, the city spokesperson, also said Ogden was interested in re-introducing Amtrak service to Union Station. In a report to Congress earlier this year, the Federal Railroad Administration proposed restoring at least some of the old Pioneer route, possibly from Seattle to Denver. If that happened, the line would pass through Ogden on its way to Salt Lake City from Pocatello, Idaho.

A proposed Los Angeles to Denver train via southern Wyoming could also make a stop in Ogden, the railroad agency said.

“I’ve always wanted to [try Amtrak],” Ogden-based commuter Antonio Moya said, “but it’s inconvenient because you have to go all the way to Salt Lake to take it.”

Railroad administration spokesperson Rosalyn Floyd said it would ultimately be up to Congress to provide funding for the restoration of service. Currently, there’s no sustained funding to build out a line or operate it, she said, but there may be some money for planning one.

Christensen said local and state governments need to speak up and say they want the line. He added that new Amtrak service would offer another connection to Utah for the 2034 Winter Olympics and boost travel options for people coming to or from Idaho and Oregon.

McBride said that any future train service to Union Station was still a ways away, though. He said the city would love to have passenger rail restored by 2034, but at the very least wants to be “edging towards completion” by then.

The city hasn’t put any money toward the project yet, McBride said, outside of dollars for planning. Once that wraps up and the City Council approves the plan, he said officials would start to gather funding for the project and have further conversations with other government partners.