Historically, the major railroad depots in the
Lansing metropolitan area were the
Union Station and the
Grand Trunk Western Station, both in
Lansing. With the establishment of
Amtrak in 1971, both stations lost their train service. Amtrak subsequently took over a building in
East Lansing to serve as a station for its planned
Blue Water train. The
Blue Water began servicing this facility on September 15, 1974. The service was renamed the
Blue Water Limited on October 26, 1975, and became the
International Limited on October 31, 1982, when the eastern terminus was extended to
Toronto. The
International Limited was operated jointly by
Via Rail and
Amtrak until it was discontinued in 2004 and replaced with the modern
Blue Water line. Plans for the new station complex, the Capital Area Multimodal Gateway, were announced in 2010, and originally included a new
parking structure and improved bus facilities as well as bicycle parking. The project was intended to replace the older Amtrak station with updated facilities, and to consolidated rail and bus service into one
intermodal transit station. The original station closed after the last train departed on January 25, 2016, and operations moved to the newly built station located a few yards to the west. ==Passenger statistics==