Waxing a bit maudlin, during this Holiday Season, I must say that my all-time favorite railroad station/terminal/depot was the one on The Canadian Pacific at McAdam, New Brunswick. It was/is huge and serviced the Montreal, QC-Saint John, NB line, plus two branches. Just east of the US border, it housed Customs agents, railway offices, a hotel, and a lunchroom. I haven’t been there since 1989, when it was a bit derelict. Our trains, from New York to BOS on the New Haven, then, from BON to Sydney, NS, on the B&M, MEC, CPR, CNR “Gull”, would stop there for breakfast (no diner on the “Gull” beyond Bangor, I believe), back in the '40s and '50s. Always something going on! We could retrieve the dog from the baggage car, for a walk, have a huge (and cheap) breakfast (I must say that I sometimes stole the tip my mother left!), and have Canadian Customs root through our luggage. We always packed a steamer trunk, which included a few rifles and shotguns. No problema! Those days may be returning on Amtrak, sans the dogs! The southbound/westbound trip was usually uneventful, but that was before DHS. At least they didn’t wake the Pullman passengers.
#2 favorite: the terminal at Sydney, NS on the Canadian National. Joyful arrivals and tearful departures, after a summer on Cape Breton Island. Even the Boston terriers seemed to be sad at leaving. The grandparents never ‘saw us off’! That would have been too much.
#3 favorite: Grand Central Terminal, my “Home Station”. Sorry for the drivel, but… Hope y’all had a merry Xmas/happy holiday. Life is good! Remember it, and write it down.
Wonderful Yuletide images, Hays! Sounds like the train ride on White Christmas! Mine would be Grand Central in Chicago (sadly, torn down years ago) and Northwestern Madison St. Terminal (also mostly torn down).
I am fond of little old and often abandoned stations from many years ago. I recall back in the 1970’s when I lived in Wausau, WI I used to run across such stations in towns like Antigo, WI (station since torn down), Marshfield, WI (still there), and others both still standing or since torn down. A photo of the old Antigo station is shown below:
I also liked the old Wausau station which still stands and was fixed up back in the 1970’s…photo below:
The Wausau, WI station I showed above is in its original location and it has been duplicated in a “new” station-like structure standing on a site of the Employers Insurance of Wausau headquarters site accross town. Interestingly enough, the Employers Insurance advertisement mentioned shows a station that is a artists compilation of the one shown above (which was a Milwaukee Road station closed in about 1971 with the coming of Amtrak and discontinuance of hte Milwaukee “Valley Service” passenger trains…and the old C&NW station across town which is now a private business.
Although I thought the pre-WW1 era C.& N.W. downtown Chicago passenger station was a clunky, weakly-inspired, architectural monstrosity outside, the way Mr. Heineman had fixed up the public spaces of its inside made it a very warm and inviting place. I sorely miss that interior space.
Today I love the contrasts between the cathedral high waiting room and the pseudo-quasi-ersatz Art Deco concourses of Chicago Union Station. The hustle and bustle through these structures, particularly during the weekday rush hours, is an amazing sight to witness. Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal is undeniably handsome and I usually visit the attractive Denver Union Station building with every visit to that city, but C.U.S. really is my favorite.
If there’s any place in the United States where I’d love to share some rounds of cocktails while watching the world go by, it would be from one of the upstairs taverns overlooking the main floor of Grand Central Terminal, New York.
I think you are a bit harsh on the NW terminal, designed by Frost and Granger. It was a neo-Renaissance style and the Denver Union Station, fortunately still standing, was a neo-Romanesque design. Denver, followed by NW Terminal, exterior and interior:
My choices aren’t really influenced by the architecture or amenities, but I can’t fault the choices of people whose are. I’ve been in a number of the stations, past and present, described in previous posts (not, however, the old Penn Station or the pre-maze Chicago Union Station).
The station I wish I had known better was the Grand Rapids Union Station. It was torn down in the mid-1950s to make way for an expressway. I remember it because we’d go there to pick up my dad after he’d been to Detroit on business for Michigan Bell. Unfortunate;y, I was too young to remember anything except the brick exterior, the train shed (both ends open), and the loud, scary noises (did I say scary?) that the trains made (did I say scary? very scary?). I didn’t like it then.
C&O’s replacement station at Grand Rapids was another favorite, back when I collected passenger timetables. I made a couple of good hauls from there, just by showing up as soon as possible after a time change. It took a while before I realized that this was at the east end of Wyoming Yard, and some yard action and other things could be seen there. That’s where I saw and heard my first GP30s (which were, of course, my first second-generation diesels), as well as my first C&O U25Bs, C630s, and GP38s. I also saw (and explained to my mother) the original C&O RoadRailers, as they came in on a train my dad was about to arrive on.
My favorite stations, however, had to be the ones close to home in Grand Haven–both GTW and C&O. Simple reason–I was allowed to go through the Veil into the Sanctum Sanctorum in both places. Along with chatting with the agent or agent/operator at these places, I could page through an Official Guide (Grand Haven was first on the rotation list on C&O) or an Official Railway Equipment Register (either place, but GTW’s was newer). I could also listen on the dispatcher’s wire (again at both locations–C&O was more active, but I managed to hit the GTW at the time when the lineup was being iss
My favorite station in the US is New York’s Grand Central Terminal, as it was in the '50s when I was a high school student. Everything from the gates and the huge Kodak display to the art gallery high above the concourse at the SE corner… It is still active as a station and has been thoroughly renovated, but the architectural historians insisted that the Kodak monster transparency had to go in the name of ‘purity.’
My all-time favorite station is the Haijima station on what is now JR-east. In the sixties it would see steam-powered freight, EMU service that connected at Tachikawa to Tokyo and the rest of Japan and DMU service on a line that made its bucolic way through rural countryside to Takasaki. Back then, tickets for an all-day rail excursion on the interconnecting web of JNR routes could be had for a few dollars’ worth of Yen.
Times and places change. I will probably never return to either New York City or Japan, so my memories won’t be sullied by today’s harsh realities.
I haven’t been in GCT since Amtrak departed. I haven’t seen the wonderful restoration. Mea culpa (I do learn!) and didn’t know there were “watering holes”, other than the Oyster Bar, in the terminal. Sounds cool! Worth an extended visit. I’d like to add Jacksonville (FL) Union Passenger Terminal/Station to my list of favorites. Dunno the exact title of the place, but it was a wonderful thing, back in the heyday of Florida rail travel. There is some hope of it being re-used, by rail, if the Amtrak FEC line is ever opened.
How 'bout a thread on the “Ugliest” (Amtrak’s new ALB “Taj Mahal” and “Worst Situated” (Amtrak’s ‘Clifford Lane Station’ in Jacksonville, FL, seconded by Grand Forks, ND)?
I did miss seeing St. Louis, but really liked (during recent visits) PDX and LAX.
Yes, I agree…my home was 20 miles from that location. Actually, when I got to experience being in the “Late Great Pennsy Station”, in NYC, we had boarded the train from that Johnstown Pennsy facility. You walked under the tracks in a tunnel to go up to trackside to catch your train. Still do. When Uncle Sam needed me, that was my transportation starting point.
Cincinnati Union Terminal. It’s only a shadow of itself, with the concourse lopped off, only one platform, and most of the building dedicated to museums. But the original intent of the building is still readily apparent. The multi-level entrances for auto, streetcars and taxis can still be discerned. (One of the museums incorporates the lower ramp into its space.) The ramp to the nearby Post Office is still there. One of the last of the major U.S. stations to be built, it is the predecessor to the modern air terminal.
I’m glad it’s preserved, even if it is mostly museums, and I hope they can manage using it for the 3-C corridor.
Just read up on St. Paul Union Depot. That’s a project I hope comes to fruition.
I must say, I never liked the old Penn Station. Weird place, methinks. Of course, I’m a “Green Teamer”. My military rail journeys began in Fleetwood, NY on the New York Central. 14.2 miles to GCT and the IRT “Lexington Avenue Express” (15 cents, in 1959) to Whitehall Street (Recruiting Main Station). Didn’t get a train trip out of “Sam” until I arrived in Germany: Frankfurt am Main to Nurnberg on DB, “First Class”. Cool. Another trip to Nurnberg from Lubeck and back to Kassel. Great travel. Later, back in the states, I did travel from Monterey, CA to San Antonio, TX; Waterbury, VT to Little Rock, AR; and Waterbury, VT to New Orleans, LA on “Sam’s” dime. In those Amtrak days, it was hard to convince the travel officer that one could travel by train, but I persisted. Even saved them money in “First Class”! Air travel, apparently, was easier for them to arrange. Of course, I gave up a ‘personal’ weekend for the difference in travel time and had to “front” the fare – well worth it! Coming back from Little Rock, on the “Broadway Limited”, wasn’t a delightful experience. The years of deferred maintenance by PRR/PC/CR had taken its toll on the roadbed and there were no seat-belts in the roomettes!
