Union Station

“ Dayton is on the Erie, the Dayton and Union and the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroads. There are one hundred and twenty-five trains entering the city daily. The Union Station was opened to the public in July, 1900, and cost, including tracks, $900,000. ”

“ Such a certificate is, we think, necessary in the construction of a new interstate union station, which involves a substantial and expensive extension of the main tracks or lines of interstate carriers who theretofore have maintained separate terminals. ”

“ It is a patriotic shrine and, quite incidentally, the most beautiful city in America, if not the world, and so it is that there is not a month in the year that Americans are not pouring through its gateway—the wonderful new Union station. ”

“ This tendency to coöperate is seen in such splendid features as the Saint Louis Union Station, for instance, where just twenty great railroad companies lay aside envy, prejudice, rivalry and whim, and use one terminal. If competition were really the life of trade, each railroad that enters Saint Louis would have a station of its own, and the public would be put to the worry, trouble, expense and endless delay of finding where it wanted to go and how to get there. ”

“ The state commission found that 'the present and future public convenience and necessity' required the construction of the union station, and that it could be constructed at a cost of approximately $10,000,000 in substantial compliance with the plan outlined, which was found to be in all essential respects similar to that considered by the Interstate Commerce Commission in its order above mentioned. ”

“ The lights are burning dimly in the Union station—they never burn brightly in a station, somehow—and it is an hour before the night express starts on its noisy triumphant journey west. Down the vista of the long platform a couple of noisy young women are sauntering. ”

“ The traveller, however, does not need figures to convince him of the business activity of the town; the piles of cotton beyond the capacity of storage, the street traffic, the extension of streets and residences far beyond the city limits, all speak of growth. There is in process of construction a union station to accommodate the six railways now meeting there and others projected. On the west of the river it has lines to Kansas City and Little Rock and to St. Louis; on the east, to Louisville and to the Atlantic seaboard direct, and two to New Orleans. ”

“ Immediately in front of the main entrance to the Union Station there are three ornamental iron flagstaffs 110 feet in height, the ornamental base and decorative portions of which are in bronze. These were designed by D. H. Burnham & Co., architects of the Union Station.
Since the completion of the Union Station in 1908 there have also been placed on the Plaza the Columbus Memorial Fountain in front of the main entrance, and two large fountains, one on each side of the memorial. ”

“ Originally, the contract routes of these companies terminated at the Union Pacific transfer at Council Bluffs, Iowa, where the mail was transferred to the Union Pacific Railway and carried into Omaha. After the construction of the Union Station, each of these companies procured the right to carry their mail over the Union Pacific Railway into the Union Station. ”

“ Various interests would be vitally affected by the substitution of a union station for the present terminals. A selection of its site from the standpoint of a city might greatly affect property values and likewise local transportation systems. The exercise of such power would compel the carriers to abandon existing terminals, to acquire new land and rights of way and enter upon new construction, to abandon large tracts, and to sell territory of the same extent as no longer necessary for the use of the carriers. ”

“ In the year 1903 Congress authorized the building of a union station, which is to cost $4,000,000. Underground electricity is exclusively used as the motive power in all street railroads within the former municipal limits, and the overhead trolley outside those limits. ”

“ Burnham to design the Union Station as he did. Construction work was begun in August, 1902, the terminal opened October 27, 1907, and was completed in April, 1908.
Some of the elements entering into the design of the terminal were unique. In most cities the probable future growth and nature of the traffic plays an important part in the planning of a passenger terminal. Washington has very little suburban traffic; and as it will never become a commercial center, the question of providing for future growth was of minor importance. ”

“ It is difficult to analyze the impression Kansas City first makes upon the Eastern stranger. It is usually that of immense movement, much of it crude, all of it full of purpose. At the Union Station, at the time of the arrival and departure of trains, the whole world seems afloat; one is in the midst of a continental movement of most varied populations. ”

“ The railways bring their passenger trains into a handsome union depot, and the interurban lines have contracted to erect a large union terminal station to cost over $1,000,000. Freight passing Indianapolis is carried over a belt railway, 151⁄2 miles long. ”

“ The floors and walls are finished in terra cotta, glazed tile or marble.
About a hundred persons may be served at a sitting. The management is under the direction of Fred Harvey.
Wichita is one of the most important commercial centers of the Southwest. Its wholesale interests and packing and live stock industries are growing steadily. The new Union Station with terminals cost approximately two and one-half million dollars and was completed in 1913. ”

“ Railways have found it advantageous to spend enormous sums of money upon terminal facilities. Depots and warehouses, garages and repair shops will be necessary if truck lines are to prove efficient [202] and successful. It would be quite feasible and profitable for all the truck lines leading from a city to have a union or common terminal station. Portland, Oregon, has such a station owned by a corporation composed of bus lines that operate from there to every city of any importance within a radius of 100 miles. ”

“ The ramps are made about 16 feet wide, and the grade approximately 15 per cent.
Terminal Stations. —For the purpose of accommodating patrons bus and express terminal stations are being installed. So far these have been established and financed by private companies. Where several bus lines or express lines radiate from a city a union depot may be expected not only to pay, but greatly to convenience the public. Small hotels and out-of-the-way places are ordinarily used when there is no central station. ”

“ No American walks through the immense concourse hall, lined with Roman travertine, of the Great Central Station in New York or penetrates the series of 36halls, like some vaster Baths of Caracalla, of the Pennsylvania Station, without a sense of pride in the two great railway companies who have given the country such noble monuments. The average New Yorker feels to these two stations as the average English schoolboy does to express engines. ”

“ The work of extension has ever kept pace with the opportunity to develop this great railroad system until it includes, in whole, or in part, more than one hundred lesser lines of road, with its main line, branches and spurs.
The great terminal station in Philadelphia, recently damaged by fire, will soon be replaced by one of the finest railroad stations in the world, even comparable with the great Pennsylvania Station in New York City. ”

“ Sixty freight cars can be loaded there at one time. One thinks what emotions that glass-roofed shed must have seen in Civil War times. I suppose many a train of men in blue said good-by to mothers and sweethearts along those platforms. That thought was with me as I stood inside the old station, which in spite of its bustle of freight is filled with the haunting sadness of all places that are old and decayed and echoing with the whispers of long ago. Does it seem absurd to sentimentalize over a railway station less than seventy years old? ”

“ The American railway stations have special waiting rooms for ladies—not, as in England, places furnished with looking-glasses, where they can go and arrange their bonnets, etc. No, no. Places where they can wait for the trains, protected against the contamination of man, and where they are spared the sight of that eternal little round piece of furniture with 79 which the floors of the whole of the United States are dotted.
At Cleveland Station, this morning, I met Jonathan, such as he is represented in the comic papers of the world. ”

“ Philadelphia possesses two distinguished city gateways.
But the first big station terminals—in our American sense that a thing big must be bigger than anything else of the same kind in the world—were those erected at Boston and at St. Louis. The first of these handles a traffic far exceeding that of any other terminal ever built; the second has a train-shed that is gigantic and overwhelming; and so each of the cities can, in a measure of truth, claim for itself the largest railroad station ever built. Each has enough of novelty and interest to make it worthy of attention. ”

“ Stretching away on either side of us, as far as the eye can reach, we see the passengers’ arrival and departure sheds, booking offices, refreshment rooms, goods and carriage depots, waterworks, gasworks, and all the other facilities and conveniences which are the usual characteristics of the railway system; while beyond the limits of the Station, and indeed of the city itself, which here intrenches upon the township of Hoole, the busy hum of life is ceaselessly heard spreading itself in every direction, and rapidly transforming the region of the plough into the turmoil of the town. ”

“ Thus have perished multiform openings for public expressions of interest, scenical yet natural, in great national tidings,—for revelations of faces and groups that could not offer themselves amongst the fluctuating mobs of a railway station. The gatherings of gazers about a laurelled mail had one centre, and acknowledged one sole interest. But the crowds attending at a railway station have as little unity as running water, and own as many centres as there are separate carriages in the train. ”

“ The sudden change from the dreary lifelessness of the veldt to the exciting crush and bustle of the station platform crowd is almost bewildering, because it is so different from what is expected in interior Africa. The station, a magnificent structure of stone and iron, presents more animated scenes whenever trains arrive than the Grand Central in New York or the Victoria in London, because every passenger is invariably met at the train by all his friends and as many of their friends as the station platform will accommodate. ”

“ If the Baltimore and Ohio can use the Pennsylvania passenger-station in New York there is no moral reason why it cannot use the Pennsylvania passenger-station in Baltimore and make a real operating saving. ”

“ Let the city government, through some film bureau, show us our own citizens at work and play and so quicken our curiosity and civic pride or shame, as the case may be.
Another public clubhouse which the marooned business man finds delightful and always full of good company is the railroad terminal. A big railroad station is an unfailing source of amusement and interest. ”

“ At the next station the reporter had a chance to examine the office of the Illinois Central agent, all decorated with shells picked up on the famous battlefields at the head of the line, and to see the bunk house and restaurant for the men who lay over there. Every station on the line—there are seven—has an American station master, and all the yards have American yard-masters and American switchmen. There is, strictly speaking, no block system in France, but each station is supposed to be the boundary of a block, and a train simply stays in one station until the one ahead is clear. ”

“ As a rule, however, nobody looks as if he liked being in a railway station or would stop there if he could go anywhere else. I trust the Ministry of Reconstruction will see to it that the railway stations of the country are rebuilt and vivified. One does not really wish to stop at any station at all except one's own station. ”

“ To the traveller, the ivory-white waiting-room, where Philadelphians delight to congregate, is an unending source of admiration; engineers find interest in the intricate system of tunnels and bridges by which a number of trunk-line divisions are brought into the station without crossing at level. Broad Street Station shows a yearly increase in its passenger traffic of about five per cent. ”

“ It's on Main Street, opposite the station, and from my chair at the switchboard I can see the platform and the trains as they come down from Cherry Junction or up from New York. It's sixty miles from Longwood to the Junction where you get the branch line that goes off to the North, stopping at other stations, mostly for the farm people, and where, when you get to Hazelmere, you can connect with an express for Philadelphia. Also you can keep right on from the Junction and get to Philadelphia that way, which is easier, having no changes and better trains. ”

“ West of Herald Square, at Seventh Avenue and Thirty-third Street, is the magnificent station of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, covering an area four hundred and fifty by one thousand eight hundred feet, the largest structure of the kind in the world, connected by tunnels under the Hudson River with New Jersey, and under the East River with Long Island. The tracks are forty feet below the level of the city streets. ”