Today’s Photo of the Day is truly a remarkable picture and at the right time. Perhaps something we wondered about or took for granted but here it is Sept. 1952 and Mr. Abbey has the foresight to capture an era that was heading off a cliff. Everything here is for passenger service. A modellers delight. A historians delight. A railfans delight.
Thank you Mr Abbey and Classic Trains.
Locomotives for Cincinnati Union Terminal
E units belonging to Louisville & Nashville, Chesapeake & Ohio, New York Central, and Pennsylvania idle on the ready tracks near the Cincinnati Union Terminal roundhouse in September 1952. Baltimore & Ohio, CUT, Norfolk & Western, and C&O steam engines populate the whisker tracks in the background.
Wallace W. Abbey photography
I guess the lesson to today’s railfan photographers is don’t pass up a photo op no matter how commonplace and mundane it might be, because you never know, do you?
What’s commonplace today can be “gone with the wind” tomorrow.
How true it is. Also, the loss of one’s photos can be very depressing. I loaned out several which have since become classics that were never returned. What a bummer!
I assume the art deco style building just visible on the left of the photograph is part of the terminal itself. Fortunately at least part of the terminal building survives. I recall there being a locomotive facility still in place near the terminal in the 1970s.
I prefer the Art Deco interior design of the Cincinnati Union Terminal to the Grand Central Terminal. This station always reminds me of the never happened train: The Chessie of C&O. Thank you Mr. Abbey, goodbye Chessie! [:-*]
Never having seen the interior of Cincinnati Union Terminal, I really can’t make an informed comment. I have trouble choosing between Grand Central Terminal, Los Angeles Union Station and Chicago Union Station. All are excellent designs. King Street Station in Seattle is an excellent design for a smaller station.
The only great terminal I’ve ever been in is Grand Central Terminal in New York, and it is an awesome sight, not just for the architecture but for all the history as well.
I’ve got a personal connection as well. My grandfather worked in GCT’s Oyster Bar for a while, and he learned to make a Manhattan clam chowder that Dad said was the best he’d ever had. Oddly enough, only Grandpa would make it, he never showed Grandma or Dad how to do it. Dad has no idea why.
It doesn’t come close but Tampa Union Station remains full of memories of two teenage boys who made TUS their second home during the early 60s.
They not only witnessed the great trains of Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line as they took passengers from the Sunshine State to The Big Apple, but talked shop with the train crews, picked up the latest copy of Trains, THE Magazine of Railroading off the newsstand, or receiving a free Coke, Reg.U.S.Pat.Off., from the lady who ran the kisok, just because they were always polite and well behaved.
Sometimes the memories is what makes a train station more than just the interior. Regretfully, I lost my best friend in 2006. He’ll be gone 13 years come this 2019 April, but the memories remain. RIP Robert, I miss you!
Quite true, but I can’t help but think the Pantheon might have been an inspiration for CUT’s “rotunda,” fo lack of a better term.
One thing the Pantheon and CUT certainly have in common is both were built to last, nothing temporary about either of them. The Emperor Agrippa and the people behind CUT wanted future generations to see and be awed by what they’d created. They both got their wish!
I remember going to the Radio City Christmas show with my family as a boy, I was eight, maybe nine years old, and when I saw that interior to say I was overwhelmed is an understatement!
Fascinating, Wayne. Architecture like the Radio City Music Hall is one of those glamorous places which inspire and encourage people to study performing arts and work in the music industry. The Rockefeller Center complex is one of my favorites skyscraper projects as well.
All these legendary building and place made NYC unreplaceable. But if NYC is a legendary city, where is the legendary train which matches the cities global status?
