Train station’s Community Room to limit use to match Amtrak schedule
January 26, 2024 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
The Community Room inside the Waterbury Train Station contains historic exhibits, a mural, a model train, restrooms, and a waiting area for Amtrak passengers. File photo by Gordon Miller
Citing concern for security and safety, the owners of the Waterbury Train Station have announced that the Community Room that serves rail passengers and the public will be closed starting Feb. 1.
Karen Nevin, executive director of Revitalizing Waterbury, the organization that owns the facility in downtown Waterbury, said the closure to the general public is intended to be temporary.
The Community Room is on the south side of the building with an entry to the platform where passengers board and disembark from Amtrak trains twice daily. It’s used as a waiting room for train passengers and it provides tourist information to visitors. During busy tourism traffic times of the year, Revitalizing Waterbury has recruited volunteer Community Ambassadors to staff the space.
The room has benches, some exhibits on Waterbury and railroad history, a mural by local artist Sarah-Lee Terrat, and a miniature model train that runs along tracks high up around the perimeter of the space. There are restrooms and access for staff of the adjacent Black Cap Café and Bakery. The bakery occupies the middle section of the building; the main cafe space runs out of the north end of the station with its own entrances.
Over the past year, Nevin said there has been a growing number of incidents at the Community Room that prompted the RW Board of Directors to decide to close the space to the public temporarily. There has been an increasing number of people loitering in the room at various times including groups of teenagers bringing in food and drinks and leaving trash behind, she said. Plumbing fixtures and the model train have been damaged by vandalism, and Nevin said she’s heard reports of inappropriate behavior in the restrooms and other illicit activity.
No one has been hurt, although Nevin said she knew of at least one instance where an individual hiding in a restroom became locked inside the space.
Cafe and bakery staff use the entry through the room and receive deliveries there. As a landlord, Nevin said, RW needs to consider the safety of the tenants as well as visitors.
Starting on Thursday, Feb. 1, the Community Room will no longer be open for the same timeframe as the cafe and bakery. Amtrak has a local greeter who is on-site twice daily for the train stops at 10:10 a.m. and 7:50 p.m. The room will only be open when the Amtrak greeter is present – shortly before and after the Amtrak Vermonter arrives and departs, Nevin said.
The Revitalizing Waterbury board will reassess the situation in the spring, Nevin said. In the meantime, there are plans to install security cameras to help with monitoring the room in the future and the building exterior, she added.
“Until we can make it a safe space for the community, we’re locking the doors,” Nevin said. “It’s a special building and we don’t want it to be mistreated.”
Built in 1875, the Italianate-style train station was restored by Revitalizing Waterbury in 2006 and the nonprofit community and economic development organization purchased it in 2011.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters – later known as Keurig Dr. Pepper – ran a cafe and visitor center in the building until 2020 when it closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company ultimately decided not to reopen. Black Cap moved in and opened its cafe and bakery in November 2022.