OMG Union Station in DC.

F

frogpipe

Yesterdayz Trainz Member
I've started revamping one of the DC to Baltimore routes from the DLC which lead me down a rabbit hole of really taking a close look at Union Station in real life.

What a mess! The tracks arent so bad, pretty normal for a large stub station by my reckoning, but that garage and the stuff they just kind slapped up around and over it all is an unholy monstrosity.

And the "master plan" isn't much better... So much for "the vestibule of the nations capital"

Sorry, just had to share with a crowd that would have some idea what I was on about. ;)
 
frogpipe said:
I've started revamping one of the DC to Baltimore routes from the DLC which lead me down a rabbit hole of really taking a close look at Union Station in real life.

What a mess! The tracks arent so bad, pretty normal for a large stub station by my reckoning, but that garage and the stuff they just kind slapped up around and over it all is an unholy monstrosity.

And the "master plan" isn't much better... So much for "the vestibule of the nations capital"

Sorry, just had to share with a crowd that would have some idea what I was on about. ;)
Click to expand...

I was through there in 1978-79 and it wasn't so nice then either. Some work was done with Boston's South Station and they actually took some of the added on structures down and cleaned things up. In the process of renovating everything, they found some ancient balloon loops used for suburban service back in the old days built by the New Haven who owned it. The loops are too narrow and too sharp for today's trains though.
 
Well the master plan for Union station has them taking the garages down and digging out below to put parking there, which is a start, relaying the terminal tracks for modern spacing which is also good, but then they want to cover the whole terminal area making it entirely entombed and building retail space over top at "street" level. So in the end the station building will be all you see and it will be jammed into a bunch of modern architecture and dwarfed by its neighbors.

Its just *shudder*
 
It sounds like some developer bought air rights and can build a shopping mall on top of the terminal area. This seems to be the theme for a lot of rail yards and terminals because developers see these areas a expendable real estate they can make a lot of money on. Look what happened to Penn Station in NYC in the 1960's. The city is still kicking its self in the virtual butt for letting that classic building become a terminal with an arena on top of it. When South Station was being rebuilt, this idea was floated about and it was promptly turned down!
 
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