Continuing my rail circumnavigation of North America, I have had a few days layover, enjoying my rides on the METRA lines.
When I first visited Chicago Union Station as a kid in 1982, I thought it was a rail wonderland. You still had RTA trains being pulled by ex-Burlington Northern and Milwaukee Road E units. Each commuter line had its own ticket window near the Great Hall. The little shopping concourse seemed modern. Gary Coleman had shown you could actually live in Union Station in that made-for-TV movie he did.
However, in my visits this year, I’m a bit disappointed with CUS. The Great Hall is still a magnificent piece of architecture, if you can avoid the bums sleeping on the benches. The food court is not exactly all that modern. Other than a few “Relay” newsstands, there’s not much shopping to be done. Whereas I could prowl the platforms in 1982 and 1983, now Amtrak and METRA Police keep you away from them unless you have a ticket–and only then can you go out there just before a train departs. That “modern” concourse now looks like what it is–a product of the 1970s.
Yesterday, I decided to ride the Metra UP North line out of the Ogilvie Transportation Center–the old CNW Station. The OTC is a combination office/retail/train center. It has a large food court, a few mall stores, and around 14 tracks that I could wander yesterday. It also looks a lot modern and its platforms are not as dingy as the old ones at CUS.
Mind you, you go to a train station to board a train, not shop at Avenue. But it is nice for passengers to have some diversion if they have a layover.
Obviously the OTC is much newer but is it time for Chicago Union Station to be remodeled as well?
Too bad the waiting rooms in both were torn down. Even in the late ‘60s, Union Station had decent restaurants and a nightclub. The experience of walking through them for me was like being in a secular cathedral, mostly because of the high ceilings. Both now have the ambiance of bus terminals.
Chicago Union Station was remodeled completely in 1991. Some shopping and a food court are on the mezzanine level, which BNSF4ever appears to have missed. When Riverside Plaza was built over the concourse in 1968, there was not a provision for access to that building to the public and the street level floor of that building is strictly an elevator lobby. The tracks themselves were also rebuilt in the 1990’s although the appearance of the platform area can’t be improved too much since buildings have been erected over the tracks.
North Western Station was demolished in the late 1980’s and replaced by the current office building. The food court and shopping is oriented primarily to those who work in the building. The RTA removed the entire 1911-built Bu***rainshed in the 1990’s and replaced it with the current trainshed. There is no building over the tracks themselves.
I am full agreement. Poor old Union station is but a shadow of it’s former self whereas Oglivie is bright full of eating places, book stores etc. Maybe the city will do something one day but if congress does away with Amtrak perhaps there will be no further need for Union.
Northwestern Station (Oglivie) has sixteen tracks…
CUS does have direct access to 222 S Riverside Plz.
I agree that you feel like a rat in a maze in CUS… ya gotta like those one-way escaltors that go up at certain times of the day & down at other times!
That Ogilve center is supported by a 15 cent a gallon tax on gasoline in Cook County and the surrounding countiesso Metra can have funds. And by the way, they want more money. Amtrak is a rat hole into which no amount of money has ever been enough and never will be. If you want to send them a donation feel free to. I am tired of paying for train service local and national that doesn’t go where I need to go and doesn’t do it efficiently. I drive fifteen miles to Indiana for gas. the difference in price is well worth the gas consumption. Union station will eventually fall down and not be replaced unless taxpayers line up to give the feds more of their money. Don’t look for me in that line.