Amtrak

I believe it is a new station. Quite small, but serves its purpose. Staff is very helpful. There are vending machines.

The new temporary facility is clean and very pleasant. A nice surprise as they build the new station.

I took the Amtrak to Chicago. This was the worse expirience ever. I would never use their service in my life. The train was so late because the train always had to stop to let other trains pass by. Its cheaper and faster to buy a plane ticket.

Bleak is the best word to describe this place.
It’s dirty, there are questionable characters loitering and the only food/​drink option is from a vending machine. There’s no wifi while you wait for your train unfortunately.
I was a little concerned about leaving my car for a day — it turned out OK (I felt better seeing the lot full). Although, it’s not supervised and you can’t say it’s a safe area where the station is. At my last visit, I entered the station only to see 5 or so Border Patrol officers standing around. It was not clear what they were doing or if they were looking for someone but everything went well. Better off with them around, sure?
If you’re arriving from elsewhere, there are often cabs lined up in expectation of the arriving trains. One upside I suppose if you don’t happen to have someone picking you up.
It pains me to know this is what represents Rochester for the train travelers. Especially knowing the historic gorgeous station we once had many years back. Fingers crossed there’s real improvement with the development of a new station. I love to ride Amtrak!

There were a few reasons this was a 1 star experience. We will never travel by train if at all avoidable.
1. The Wi-​Fi was a joke, once more than 5 people are using it, it literally no longer worked. Might as well not even offer it.
2. We were on a 9 hour ride that ended up taking 11 ½ due to construction… Brutal!
3. Then the food cart’s credit card machine broke was cash only! Good thing I was able to come up with some dollars and change for their microwave food, otherwise I wasn’t eating for 11 ½ hours!
4. There was an elderly lady on the train who was going to miss her next stop because we were arriving so late. The woman conductor was awful to her! It was your (Amtrak) fault she was going to be late and then you are rude to this poor old lady who doesn’t even have a cell phone to call her grandson to let him know she was going to be quite late. I finally complained to another conductor and finally her attitude changed,
TIP — Rent a car, it’s worth the extra $$

Staff is awesome. Station is embarrassing. Check out the photos. Enough said.
Train service is generally on time, though, and the trains themselves are great.

This Amtrak station was built as a temporary structure and it shows.
There’s an unsupervised parking lot in front of the station where you can leave your car while you are gone (I have not tried doing this yet).
The interior is so stark/​depressing and is usually not very clean. The seats show the wear of the years clearly. However, there are usually enough seats for everyone to wait for the train which will almost definitely be at least 10 minutes late.
The person at the counter has always been helpful. There’s also a machine where you can print out your tickets.
I suggest you listen carefully to figure out which train is pulling into the station. There’s only one area to board and sometimes trains get there at the same time. It can be confusing and result in you heading to Toronto instead of NYC!

³⁄₅ since this review is about two utterly unrelated halves:
1) Customer service is deserving of 5 stars. In the many many times I’ve gone through this station, I’ve never had a non helpful staff person. Usually they go out of their way to help, even calling the conductors or other stations to get the needed information.
2) the station itself is TERRIBLE. The chairs are sticky, the bathrooms are disgusting and un stocked. Trash strewn all over. Warrants 0 stars.
So average the two and you get 3.

The bathrooms are disgusting– they didn’t have toilet paper or paper towels, and hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. I have traveled out of this station a few times, and the trains have never been on time (not sure if this can be attributed to the station at all, but I’ll mention it anyway). It is in a scary part of the city, and I never feel comfortable during the many hours that I end up waiting for the late train.
I will always try to take the train out of syracuse from now on, as I have heard that it is a very nice station.

I love riding Amtrak, but this station is a bit… depressing. The original station was designed by renowned architect, Claude Fayette Bragdon. It was beautiful, one of Rochester’s most incredible structures. In the 1960s someone got the bright idea to tear it down, rip up some tracks, and drop a box on the rubble.
In a lot of ways, it mirrors what happened to Penn station during the same era. Sure, this station is functional, but it’s dreary and sad. CSX owns the tracks, so there have been times where I can see the train just a few hundred feet away, but it must wait for a slow moving freight train to pass. The clerks and train staff are always pretty helpful, but I can’t help but to feel like this station barely functions. I really wish Rochester gets the funding to build the large intermodal transit station on the site of this dingy brutalist box.

This is the worst mattress store I’ve ever been to! I tested out one of their adjustable beds and when I woke up I was in Manhattan.
The maintenance in this station is so poor that there’s still graffiti from the Reagan era in the bathroom. God help you if you happen to be there when Border Patrol is, they like to get handsy.

A really nice station, for a lower end of town. If you have a little time during a train pitstop, and feel the urge to brave a short trek through town. Head up to one of Rochesters Deli’s, they’re better than the station food offered and a nice way to stretch your legs in an effort to make it back to the train before it departs.:)