Cincinnati River Road station was an Amtrak intercity rail station located south of River Road (U.S. Route 50) west of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. It opened in October 1972 to replace the underused Cincinnati Union Terminal, and closed in July 1991 when Amtrak moved service back to the restored Union Terminal. History Cincinnati Union Terminal, opened in 1933, was among the last grand big-city stations built in the United States. In its heyday, it served up to 216 trains per day. On May 1, 1971, when Amtrak took over intercity passenger rail service, the station's service was reduced to just two routes: the James Whitcomb Riley to Chicago and the George Washington to Washington and Newport News. Less than three months later, on July 12, the Riley and George Washington merged into a single long-distance Chicago-Washington train, with the eastbound train known as the George Washington and the westbound train known as the James Whitcomb Riley. The two trains had been inherited from different railroads — the Riley from Penn Central (formerly New York Central), the George from the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O) — and turning the train to the proper direction required a half-hour trip around a balloon loop north of Union Terminal. These two daily trains, which between them saw fewer than 30 boardings and alightings per day, were nowhere near enough to justify the station's annual $4 million operating cost. In 1972, construction began on a new, smaller station building. It sat on the south side of the River Road highway viaduct, about southwest of Union Terminal and west of downtown Cincinnati. At 1,500 square feet, it was a tiny fraction of the size of the 504,000-square-foot Union Terminal. The new station had a modern design, a 25-seat air conditioned waiting room, a ticket counter, restrooms, a crew room, and a parking lot for 30 cars. The building itself cost $90,000. The station and its parking lot were designed so that both could be enlarged if traffic increased. The new Cincinnati River Road station opened on October 29, 1972, having cost a total of $270,000. It was expected to save the company $500,000 in annual operating costs. It was located on the ex-New York Central line between Cincinnati and Indianapolis used by the Riley/George, and thus avoided the need for the slow loop turnaround. However, on October 6, 1973, Amtrak rerouted the Riley/George off of deteriorating ex-NYC