Chris Cantell Discusses Travel: Union station celebrates 100 years by Martina Janeckova

Washington’s Union Station is celebrating its centennial this weekend (Saturday, Oct. 4 from 10 a. m. to 4 p. m. and Sunday Oct. 5 from noon to 4 p. m.). There will be exhibition of historic locomotives and passenger cars from the bloom of rail travel, as well as modern Amtrak equipment. Visitors will also be able to buy souvenir stamps inside and old railway post office car and archival photos of the station will be displayed. David Burnham, the principal architect of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, designed the station to serve as “a monumental gateway to Washington”, said Dwight Young, who works for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The station opened in 1907, although it wasn’t completed until 1908. In the early decades, nearly everyone, including famous persons as presidents and royalty, arrived in Washington by train. But later as passengers started to prefer other means of transport, big train stations fell out of favor. New York Pennsylvania Station was razed in 1964. Union station was in decline too, with big pieces of ceiling falling off and mushrooms growing the floor. But this station survived, thanks in part to an unsuccessful project to remake the building into a national visitor’s center for the country’s bicentennial. Soon the station was closed. In 1988 it was reopened after the restoration, once again as a train station, but also with a shopping mall with luxurious shops and restaurants. Amtrak has been trying to support similar restoration projects through its Great American Stations program. Today the station is one of the Washington’s most visited sites with more than 32 million people passing through a year.

by Martina Janeckova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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