Port Huron is the terminus of the Blue Water train, with trains currently stopping literally on the siding where trains are serviced and spend the night, since Blue Water trains operate as pull-pull trains with a Charger locomotive on either end of the Venture trainsets. When the Blue Water arrives, as passengers are still leaving the station, cleaning crews descend on the train to service train. A sewage truck (I think its main business is emptying port-a-potties) can be seen driving up and down the passenger platform.
Amtrak service has operated to Port Huron continuously since 1974, always with just one train per day. From 1982 until April 23, 2004 this train was the International with Port Huron an intermediate stop on a daily round-trip train from Chicago to Toronto. The station platform has always been at this location (the 1976 Amtrak timetable gives “16th at GTW RR tracks” as the location) but the current small station building opened in 1979 as a prototype design to be a modular AmStation, that wasn't replicated anywhere else.
The station is a cream-colored building with a brown shingled roofline. There is a tiny canopy that covers a very small portion of the station’s main low-level platform. This platform is along one of two siding tracks that stop at bumper blocks a short way before the grade-crossing of 16 Street that provides the only access to the station. A secondary siding track has its own simple patch of concrete, accessible by one pedestrian grade-crossing from the main station. These tracks are a short way away from the CN (formerly Grand Truck Railroad) line to the St. Clair River Tunnel and Canada that begins a few blocks east of the station.
The platform has a tactile warning strip and fading yellow line, plus a wheelchair lift but no other amenities for waiting passengers. The depot is still open for passengers, during overnights only from 10:30pm to 6:30am, yes, a cheap railfan could spend the night in the waiting room! The inside of the waiting room contains a small cinderblock with off-white paint waiting room. There are modern waiting benches (all with arms) along with blue doors to two single stall restrooms at one end. There is also a Ticket office (that was open until 2016, although it was also closed from 2002 to 2004). These have white Helvetica text on a grey background announcing the amenities to passengers. There is also a QuikTrak machine. A retro-style departure boards shows the train station's one daily arrival and departure.
Most of the rest of the platform is lined with a small parking lot, with just one row of parking spaces directly along the platform. The parking lot ends, just before the western end of the platform at a small maintenance building, that also includes a trailer right outside of it, this is where the Blue Water is served during its overnight layover.
The area beyond the end of the platform and depot, after a couple of ADA parking spaces, is more parking (this time spaces on each side of a single driveway) that leads to the station's single entrance with no sidewalk (although there is a sidewalk on 16th Street just north of the grade-crossing) out to 16th Street. This entrance is marked by a modern Amtrak Port Huron sign that is illuminated at night.
Other signage at the station includes modern blue text on silver Port Huron, MI signs lining both the platform, and area opposite the second track and platform. There are also two blue signs with an Amtrak logo in silver (the Amtrak logo and the word Amtrak are illuminated at night) directly on the depot building that say Port Huron Station below (not illuminated).
The station is located in an industrial area, approximately 2 miles Southwest of Downtown Port Huron with very little around the station to service the traveler before or after the early morning or late evening arrivals and departures of the Blue Water.
The station is at its not very convenient location because of the St. Clair River Tunnel to Sarnia, Ontario, Canada: the approach down to this tunnel begins just across the grade-crossing of 16th Street and gently slopes downward, the portal visible from the nearby grade-crossing just before the next through street of 10th Street. The original tunnel was an engineering marvel when it opened in 1891 as the first full-sized (for a full-sized train) underwater tunnel in North America, and the first international tunnel to be built in the world. There are four plaques attached to the outside of the station house along the platform commorating the achievement. This tunnel was closed in 1994 when a new replacement tunnel opened that could handle double-stacked freight trains, the new tunnel was named the Paul M. Tellier Tunnel after the CN president who helped built it.
This tunnel was in use for passenger service by the jointly-operated by both VIA and Amtrak International that operated from 1982 until 2004. These trains backed into and out of the Port Huron Station to reach the tunnel to Canada, stopping on the same siding track as the Blue Water today. US customs and border patrol met the train at Port Huron to process passengers. Service was discontinued in 2004 because the State of Michigan who helped fund the train didn't like the schedule that prevented connections to other long-distance trains in Chicago. There is still VIA service from Sarnia to Toronto (today just one daily train on a leave Sarnia in the morning, return to Sarnia in the evening), although crossing the Blue Water bridge requires going via vehicle, I know of one YouTuber who did this and it cost $200 for the taxi ride.
Photos 1-15: June 9, 2025; 16-60: June 10, 2025; 61-78: June 11, 2025;
Lapeer, MI