Owned by City of New Orleans Bus stands 16 Opened 1954 Owner New Orleans Tracks 6 (formerly 9+) | Train operators Amtrak Parking 180 long term spaces Phone +1 800-872-7245 Platforms in use 4 | |
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Location 1001 Loyola Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70113
United States Bus operators Greyhound Lines, Megabus Address 1001 Loyola Ave, New Orleans, LA 70113, USA Connections Rampart-St. Claude Streetcar Line, New Orleans Regional Transit Authority Similar Aquarium of the Americas, French Quarter, Audubon Zoo, St Charles Streetcar Line, Lake Pontchartrain | ||
Amtrak train 59 and new orleans union passenger terminal march 11 2013
New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal (NOUPT) is an intermodal facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, US. Located at 1001 Loyola Avenue, it is served by Amtrak, Greyhound Lines, Megabus, and NORTA with direct connections to the Loyola Ave. Streetcar line.
Contents
The station is the major southern terminus hub for Amtrak, serving three trains (Sunset Limited, City of New Orleans, and Crescent). Amtrak also operates a coach and engine yard near the terminal. It is the second-busiest Amtrak station in the Southeast United States after the Sanford, Florida, station. (Since 2005, the Sunset Limited has terminated at NOUPT instead of Orlando, Florida, because Hurricane Katrina damaged tracks owned by CSX, although Amtrak officials in 2016 proposed to reopen service to Orlando.)
History
The New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal was built just west of the older New Orleans Union Station to consolidate passenger rail operations from the city's railroad stations. Parts of the station property also are over what once was the turning basin for the New Basin Canal. The main lead track to the terminal follows the path of the old canal (which was filled in) and the Pontchartrain Expressway/I-10.
NOUPT was designed in 1949 by the New Orleans architectural firms of Wogan and Bernard, Jules K. de la Vergne, and August Perez and Associates. When it opened in 1954, it was considered an ultramodern facility, completed just at the time that air travel was taking off at the expense of rail travel.
The stub-end terminal consists of covered platforms and a modern waiting hall. A 120-foot (37 m) long mural of Louisiana and New Orleans history, painted by Conrad A. Albrizio with the assistance of James Fisher, was restored after 2005's Hurricane Katrina. The freight and express houses are now the domain of the New Orleans Arena and Main Post Office.
In the 1970s, parts of two platforms were shortened to allow for Greyhound Lines to build an intercity bus terminal, sharing the terminal with Amtrak and creating an intermodal facility.
Following Hurricane Katrina, Amtrak provided the first commercial transportation out of New Orleans. During the recovery efforts, NOUPT was briefly used as a jail.
In January 2013, the station became the terminus for the new mile-long Loyola Avenue-Union Passenger Terminal Streetcar Line connecting Canal Street with the Central Business District and destinations such as the Superdome. The $52 million project was largely funded through a $45 million Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant awarded to the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Megabus started operations at the Union Passenger Terminal in 2015.