Hello all,
I am starting to work on a new HO scale model railroad focusing around passenger trains of the 1960’s. I would like to scratch build a model of Chicago Union Station and it’s main concourse which was demolished in 1969. Do any of you know where I could find any information and more detailed photos of the concourse as it formerly existed?
Thanks,
Ed
If memery is correct, there were two concourses with the main waiting room between them, one for the CMStP&P on the north and one for everone else, CB&Q, GM&O, and PRR on the south. Union Station always was and still is two statons back-to-back. How are your going to build a model railroad aorund it? Tough enoiugh for one terminal station, but two? I think there were two through tracks that had some platform access.
Sad to say, I did not get to Chicago until 1968–just a short time before the great changes.
However, there are still two through tracks, and the one on the west has platform access. Umtil the first class lounge was moved to its current location, sleeper passengers would walk outside the lounge directly to this platform and on it to the array of tracks on the south side to board their cars.
I believe that the main waiting room was on the west side of the station, not between the two concourses.
The main waiting room is now referred to as the Great Hall. It seems to be reverting to its original role. I remember that prior to 1968, CUS actually had one concourse with track gates on both the north and south sides.
Having had some experience as a model railroader, even if a long time ago, I would think that, unless your model railroad is extremely large, you are better off modeling a through station, rather than a terminal, and expecially not two terminals back-to-back. Where are all those trains going to go after they leave the two terminals? If I wanted to model the passenger railroading of the Chicago area in the days of the late 50’s and 60’s, or even today, the two locations that would be at the top of my list would be Joliet and/or Englewood. For a downtown Chicago great ststion, only Central would fill the bill. Central would give you IC, New York Central (Michigan Central and Big Four), and South Shore. Diesel, steam, and Electric.
But then, maybe you have some creative idea to model Union Station, that the station will be the main attraction. I’ve thought of modeling Grand Central Terminal. But only the facade. The purpose would be model the intense streetcar activity on 42nd Street in front of the Terminal, and the two layers of rapid transit classic IRT subway trains below 42nd Street, the shuttle with its trains moving back and forth and what is now the 7 line directly below. The Lexington Avenue subway line and the Central and New Haven trains would be represented (implied) but not really modeled or operating. And the scene would be January 1945 VE Day. Third Avenue streetcars would include the convertables on the 42nd Street Crosstown, 629, the car I ran often at Branford, borrowed from 59th Street to run on 42nd, which it did regularly on Sundays, and the Broadway Huffliners, the double-end Peter-Witts built for Broadway-42nd. The IRT shuttles and most of the Flusning and Astoria trains would be the classic IRT railroad-roof “Steinways” and “Low-Vs,” but there would be one train of 1938 “Worlds Fair,” the last that the private IRT bought before Unification. The t
Edward M. Derouin put together an excellent classic-era history of Union Station, its operations and buldings (Chicago Union Station: A Look at its History and Operations Before Amtrak - Chicago 2003). Should be findable on the used book market. The concourse was quite a wide space, covering the distance from the north side gates to the south side gates, which remain in the same locations.
Thank you all very much for responses. I think I will order the book (and a few others as well).
I spent most of my life in the Chicago area and was in Union Station several times a week in my later years there. As a person who loves trains and architecture, it is my favorite building on the planet.
As for the comments about my model railroad plans…
I do plan on modeling as close to original as possible. The station will be the focus of my layout. It will be a back-to-back terminal. My layout will be rather large as it will be in a 2400 sq ft space. I turn 50 years old this month, I plan to be working on this for the next 20 years with my son.
Thank you all,
Ed
Still recommending Central Station if you want to model a Chicago “terminal.” It is desgined as a through station, so it is adaptable to many kinds of model railroad layouts. The variety of equipment in the period of steam-to-diesel transition is terrifice, with the steamlined Panama and City of New Orleans with E-units and the odd articulated Green Diamond to St, Louis. The other IC and most NYC System trains would be steam with heavywieght equipment; but possibly one of the Central’s would be lightweights with an E-unit. Freight to IC’s Riverfront yard passing cloase to the stiation. On the electrified tracks closes to Michigan Blvd. electric original MUs of the IC, motor-trailer pairs in trians, and the South Shore with both short and lengthened and modernized MUs. And I almost forgot, the Roosevelt Rd. streetcar extension to Grant Park crossing over all the platforms and tracks with its own upper-level platforms and stairways and lighrweight one-man double-end streetcars and also deck-roof older cars like 144 Union.
Into Central, the NYCentrql also handled through cars from south of Cincinnati from several railroads, including the C&O and Southern.
Well Dave, I really liked the old I.C station too, but as the O.P. stated, he wants to model old Union. You might be forgetting that Union was also, a “Through-Station” in track layout, if not in normal operation.It wasn’t until the early 1970’s when Amtrak ran a train from Milwaukee to St. Louis, Through Union Station. Alas, that didn’t last very long. I also agree that the late Ed DeRouin penned the ultimate book on CUS. As for what I would model in “HO”. I’d do good old Dearborn Station. Neat old place with lots of variety in RR’s ATSF, GTW, ERIE, C&EI, MONON, I may be forgetting a few… I did see an article in an old “Model Railroader” magazine from the '80’s I think, where somebody did model Dearborn Station. It was fantastic.
Todd
The problem with Union in model railroad is that you need really two model railroads, one for each side of the station, unless you want most of the tracks to be dummies and simply use, most of the time, the through tracks. Dearborn would solve that problem, of course. But modeling Central permits a continuous procession of trains in both directions, allowing one person to run a lot of trains simultaneously, something that cannot be done with Dearborn.
Wabash, C&WI - C&WI was owned by all but the AT&SF, which was a tenant. AT&SF had a wonderful coach yard nearby.
The “bypass” tracks around Union Station hosted freight, mail and passenger transfer runs of incredible variety. Just about anything running in the Chicago area could be seen there.
Spending some time at Union summer 1952 and then again 1967-1970, I just don’t remember the bypass tracks being used very often.
Y
Thank you all for your participation in this thread. I’ve really enjoyed reading all the responses. The model layout will be a rather large two tier layout with a helix that will take the trains from one level to the next. Union station will be at one end of the layout. There will be small sections of mainline track that will come out of one side of the concourse that will only be there for cosmetics. Then the functioning tracks will come out of the other side of the concourse. This will not be a continuous “looping” layout. Real trains do not run in circles 
Ed
At the risk of sounding “nitpickey” The ICRR that went “Through” Central Station did not ever go further than the Chicago river. Those last few miles ended up at freight station, and express spurs. Unless I’m missing an I.C. passenger train that went north out of Chicago. Hey, I’m not trying to be a pain, just trying to set things straight for a modeller with a question. The only ICRR tracks that went PAST Central Station were the Suburban tracks that ended at Randolph Street. But those were the IC Electric, Totally removed from IC long distance trains.
Seems to me there was an article several years ago in Model Railroader Mag. about Englewood Union Station. (That is about 10 miles south of the “Loop” . That was really the place to be until the 1960’s.) Now unrecognizable, it was the junction of the PRR, NYC, and C,R,& I.P. A search through some OLD Trains magazines should provide some helpful info.
Todd
The bypass tracks at Union were mostly used by short transfer cuts - seldom more than 10 cars or so, so they wouldn’t seem very busy, even though a lot of different carriers used them. Just about all “bypass mail” handled by the Milwaukee and North Western moved on the bypass tracks, including Flexi-Vans off the New York Central. By the late 1960s a lot of the traffic that had formerly used the bypass tracks was gone, or in the case of Milwaukee mail, moved in the late evening and early morning.
IC’s Central Station was laid out as if it were a through station with a ladder on each end of the platform tracks, even if the north ladder led to a stub.
Sadly, Englewood Union Station, once located at 63rd and State on the South Side of Chicago is long gone. It was closed in 1969 and demolished in the 1970s.
I used to commute downtown each day on the Metra Rock Island, and I would look out the window at the northeast corner of the intersection between the Rock Island tracks and the old PRR tracks at the vacant property that once held Englewood Union Station.
More recently, a so-called CREATE project constructed a flyover for Metra Rock Island commuter trains to bypass the grade level intersection and ease freight train congestion. So, now, the old Englewood Union Station site cannot even be seen by commuters on the Metra Rock Island.
Rich
I am going to give all my encouragement to anyone that wants to model ANY downtown Chicago Station! I’ve always wanted to do Dearborn myself, but to do it right, it would take the entire basement… But hey, Give it Hell!!! I’d like to see it in a future issue of MR.
Todd
You are likely referring to Gary Hoover’s Dearborn Station module on his ATSF layout. Gary came as close as anyone in capturing the look and feel of Dearborn Station in the 1950s.
Rich