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Next Amtrak Depot Committee Board Meeting: Thursday, May 8, 2 p.m., TwinStar Credit Union Headquarters conference room; 4501 Intelco Loop, Lacey

AMTRAK passengers and depot visitors are welcome to comment, compliment
 or ask questions to volunteers by email, click below:
 contactOLWstation@gmail.com

Olympia-Lacey Depot Board Endorses Washington state Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1837 that has now passed each house in different forms. Our station would have 16 more Cascades trains per day if 10-year targets set by ESHB 1837 in each house becomes reality. The bill, requiring an annual report to the Legislature passed the state House 68-29 and passed the state Senate 32-17 on April 16. The Senate-passed bill contains a substantial rewrite by the Transportation Committee that retained the target for train numbers (eight more roundtrips or 16) but removed on-time targets.ESHB 1837 has also been endorsed by All Aboard Washington and the League of Women Voters.

Olympia-Lacey Centennial Amtrak Station

Operating since 1993 at 6600 Yelm Highway S.E. completely by community volunteers who meet every passenger train, regardless of when each train arrives. Volunteers are available twenty-four hours per day for 31 years, seven days per week,14 trains per day. The depot, also known as "Centennial Station" to celebrate 1889-1989 statehood, was built with community volunteers, donated labor and contributions from Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey, Thurston County, the Port of Olympia, etc. It is now the fourth busiest passenger train depot in Washington state (Mile Post 32.2 on the Burlington Northern Seattle Sub). The building, designatd by Amtrak as "OLW", was sold to Intercity Transit which maintains the facility and provides scheduled city bus connections and park/ride lots.

6600 Yelm Highway S.E.
Olympia-Lacey, Washington
Phone: 360-923-4602
Updated  April 18, 2025

Fourteen Daily Trains from Olympia-Lacey

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Amfleet Car at Olympia-Lacey on April 4, 2025
Amfleet cars bring a new look to most Amtrak Cascades trains, April 2025


In its first month of operation, more than 138,600 persons viewed our Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera online

Visit our YouTube Steel Highway Site at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJoTKVaEJhw

 That data was provided by our YouTube host, Steel Highway, that hosts our station camera server. That's something like an astounding 4,300 to 5,000 views per day in our first month of operation for Olympia-Lacey, the second highest views for any single location in the Steel Highway YouTube network. Our rail cam continues to be one of the most appreciated. The average viewer is online each view for 13 minutes. Indications are that we had more than 34,000 distinct individuals viewing our camera in the first month with an overwhelming number returning for more views.  By March, the site collected more than 2,200 likes. After a power outage forced a reset, we are up to 1,000 likes on March 22.

Depot Volunteers Welcome! Click Here


2024 Annual Statistics for Main 1 and Main 2 at the Station:
4,908 Amtrak Trains per year!

Compiled by nine Chehalis Railfans, Here are some statistics on the mainline track
that runs in front of our station
Special thanks to David Norton.
Total Freight & Passenger Trains Recorded: 18,047
Total Northbound: 10,697
Total Southbound:  7,350
Longest freight train (cars): 288 (About three miles!)
Busiest Hour: 7 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Slowest Hour: 7 a.m. - 8 a.m.
Total locomotives spotted: 50,147

 Average Daily Trains: 49.3
Average Car Count BNSF: 92.2
Average Car Count UP: 100.8



Santa Claus
Arrives by Train

December 14, 2024
Olympia-Lacey Centennial Amtrak Station

About 300 parents and kids attended Santa's arrival on Amtrak Cascades 502

A giving tree is at the station for Feline Friends of America
and Caring Hearts 4 Paws

 Sponsored by Olympia-Lacey
Amtrak Centennial Station Volunteers

Summer River


Photos used by permission of their mothers. Summer is left. River is center

Amtrak Coast Starlight to Los Angeles (Train 11) departs Olympia-Lacey Centennial Amtrak Station daily.



Our forerunner:

"AmShack"

Photo taken in 1980

The remote site had no public transportation, no lighting, a gravel lot, and a usually non-operational pay telephone. The three-sided building served East Olympia for about 20 years. (Photo by Paul Vitous)



OLW is Multimodal: Intercity Transit

Olympia-Lacey Depot (OLW) offers daily service from 14 trains (Amtrak Coast Starlight and Cascades) plus two Intercity Transit bus routes (Routes 94 & 64.) The community busses winding through Yelm, Lacey and Olympia make nearly 80 stops daily at the depot and a park/ride lot between the hours of 5:45 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. Bus 64 from downtown Olympia (College St./Amtrak) currently makes 28 stops daily, 6:15 a.m. to 8:03 p.m., services the Lacey Transit Center and terminates at the station. Bus 94 from downtown Olympia or Yelm (Yelm Via Boulevard) currently makes more than 50 stops daily, 5:45 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. It is currently the last bus out to downtown from our station nightly both weekdays and weekends.

 


Station Painting

Our station opened in 1993 and a rendering by J. Craig Thorpe that was painted prior to construction was pictured atop the 1993 National Amtrak Calendar. That launched a career as a transportation artist for Thorpe. But the Olympia station opened without any financial support from Amtrak for station staff. The volunteers sold the building to Intercity Transit which maintains it.


 

Chambers Prairie Lacey, WA, NP Station, 1912

Left, the Chambers Prairie Station that preceded "AmShack" in East Olympia that was built by Union Pacific Railroad and razed in the late 1960s. Center is the original Northern Pacific Station for Olympia near the state Capitol. Photos by Fisher and Labbe are courtesy of the Northern Pacific Railroad Historical Association. Right, is a 1912 photo of the Northern Pacific Depot at Lacey, Washington. Photo from the Harold Meir Collection, Courtesy St. Martin's University Abbey. Special thanks to Father Peter Tynan, University Chaplain and Abbey Monk. Locomotive is a Baldwin 4-6-0 built about 1890.

Our History

Since the Northern Pacific first built track to Tenino in 1872, the Olympia area has been often spurned for passenger train service. NP chose Tacoma over Seattle and Olympia for its West Coast terminus. At the urging of the territorial governor, private landowners began laying track on their own to connect Olympia with the "Prairie Line" to Tacoma that ran east from Tenino (known eventually as the Port Townsend Southern) to enable Olympia passenger service. That same citizen commitment from the late 1880s continued one hundred years later when Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater residents began planning a full-service train station to serve the Amtrak Pioneer and other trains to replace a three-sided stop at Chambers Prairie in East Olympia (Today, we refer to it as 'AmShack.')

The initial fundraising campaign for the station began in 1987 and was to mark the State of Washington centennial in 1989. This "Centennial Station" that resulted was built largely from community donors and laborers working mostly without compensation. Approximately $100,000 was raised in cash and $300,000 in products and services to build Centennial Station. Washington State provided $60,000 in additional funds to install utilities after the building was completed. Donors purchased bricks on the station platform during one local donation drive. There were at least 30 Olympia-area depots that preceded it in history (many pictured inside the station.)
TalgoClock CypressCorbel StainGlass Light Fixtures

Talgo Clock, Cypress Corbels, Stained Glass,
Vaulted Ceilings, Custom Light Fixtures

Olympia-Lacey Centennial Amtrak Station was designed by an Olympia architect, Harold Dalke, to capture the feel of an early 20th Century train station. To a model railroader, the 1993 building's classic lines are like the plastic model stations used on Lionel train layouts. The OLW Depot features180-year-old solid cypress corbels, vaulted interior ceilings, stained glass with historic railroad logos, light fixtures scaled from Grand Central Station, and a classic platform clock donated by the Talgo Corporation in a ceremony by a visiting Spanish prince.The corbels were refinished at the wood shop of Panorama City and purchased by individual donors for installation.

Bob Bregent

Bob Bregent

Original Depot Project Manager

He was manager during construction of the station. He recalls asking a representative of the State Department of Transportation for assistance. "He literally laughed in my face and said 'Nobody rides the train anymore. We're not giving you one red penny.' " Bregent said there isn't anything the State of Washington could have told advocates to galvanize them more.

-Thurston Talk


Rich DeGarmo

Rich DeGarmo

Father of the Volunteer Station Model

He was one of the key founders of Olympia-Lacey Centennial Station and the designer of our unique volunteer-run depot model. Richard William DeGarmo, 85, of Tumwater, died Sept. 9, 2024 following a very long illness. Survivors include Susan DeGarmo, his wife who herself was a station volunteer. Amtrak initially refused to stop at our station until Rich worked out a volunteer schedule that allowed Olympia-Lacey train stops in 1993 without any on-site paid Amtrak employees. His legacy continues and lives on with our all-volunteer depot. Typical volunteer shifts at the station are about five hours and largely between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.

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Olympia-Lacey Amtrak Depot

Website maintained by the community volunteers of the Amtrak Depot Committee.
Web manager is Larry Ganders, centennialstation@outlook.com