Auburn, initially named Slaughter, received its first staffed train station in October 1889 on the
Puget Sound Shore Railroad, part of the
Northern Pacific Railway. A large station was built in 1902, near the intersection of C Street and Main Street to the north of the current Sounder platforms. Auburn served as the Northern Pacific's main junction in the Puget Sound region, with trains diverting to either Seattle or Tacoma from
Stampede Pass, and a large
railyard was built in 1913 for freight operations south of downtown Auburn. Amtrak also stopped transcontinental trains at a separate
East Auburn station until the
Empire Builder was rerouted away from Stampede Pass in 1981. In the late 1980s, officials in King County proposed a modern
commuter rail system running between
King Street Station in Downtown Seattle and Auburn, where it would terminate near Ellingson Road south of downtown. Metro Transit, the countywide transit operator, began preliminary studies for the commuter rail system in 1987 and identified a site on West Main Street as a potential alternative to the Ellingson Road terminus. The 1993 regional transit plan published by Metro and other transit agencies proposed an extended version of the commuter rail line to
Tacoma, with up to three stations in the city of Auburn. The Downtown Auburn site near Main Street was identified in 1994 as the city's preferred location for a commuter rail station, along with an alternative on the
Union Pacific Railroad near the
Supermall. The station was included in the rejected 1995 ballot measure and successful 1996 ballot measure that would fund a commuter rail system managed by
Sound Transit. The location of Auburn station was approved by the Sound Transit Board in March 1998 and a design contract with Anil Verma Associates was signed in August. On August 12, 1999, Sound Transit broke ground on Auburn station, marking the beginning of Sounder commuter rail construction. Construction of the station was delayed for several months while Sound Transit negotiated a long-term track lease with
BNSF Railway, causing Auburn station's cost to exceed its budget by $3.2 million. The station was opened on September 17, 2000, with a ceremonial inaugural ride to Seattle, and regular Sounder service began the following day. Auburn station had the highest ridership among the three early Sounder stations, which initially had two daily round trips to Seattle; the city government also rebuilt several streets around the station to prepare for future commercial development. The parking garage and pedestrian bridge were opened in March 2003, as part of the second phase of station construction. The $30 million garage was designed with input and funding from the City of Auburn, who signed a
99-year lease on its retail spaces and several parking stalls that were later converted to paid commuter parking. In 2009, the state legislature funded a
Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) study on the feasibility of a short commuter rail service connecting Auburn station to
Covington and
Maple Valley. A separate WSDOT study in 2013 proposed adding Auburn station to
Amtrak Cascades, the region's intercity passenger train, as a replacement for
Tukwila station. The study concluded that Auburn would not be a desirable intercity rail stop and recommended against adding it to
Cascades service. In 2017, part of the station's west platform was removed for the installation of a third track by BNSF Railway, as part of improvements to the rail corridor. In response to high demand at Auburn station's parking garage, where stalls are filled before late-morning trains, a second garage was proposed as part of transit ballot measures in 2007 and 2008. but the project was deferred in 2010 due to a decline in
sales tax revenue collected by Sound Transit. Funding for the project was restored in early 2016, along with funding for pedestrian and bicycle improvements in downtown Auburn. In late 2017, Sound Transit and the City of Auburn selected a former lumber store two blocks west of city hall as the preferred location for the parking garage. The 500-stall garage and other improvements were expected to cost $60 million and be completed by 2024, but the garage's opening was later delayed to 2027. ==Services==