Union Station, Seattle

Union Station (originally known as the Oregon and Washington Station), opened in May of 1911, was Union Pacific’s answer to the Great Northern’s and Northern Pacific’s King Street Station, which opened in 1906. The two stations sat literally right across the street from one another although it is argued that Union Station was the more grand of the two. Built in the Beaux Arts style the station featured a magnificent vaulted ceiling and arched concourse with lots of open space, large oak benches, and beautifully tiled flooring (not to mention plenty of office space).

While the Union Pacific's building may have been more aesthetically pleasing than King Street Station it lacked, from an operational standpoint, the functionality of the latter with a stub-ended rather than a through design (meaning that rail service ended at the station and did not continue on as at King Street Station where the main line passed right beside the building).

Soon after the station opened the Milwaukee Road joined Union Pacific and thus began, from a railfan’s perspective, the most interesting operations at the station. Not long after the Milwaukee reached Seattle and completed its main line to the Pacific Northwest the railroad strung wires (electrified rail lines) between Harlowton, Montana and Avery, Idaho, and then again between Othello, Washington and Seattle.

During Union Station’s heyday one could watch Milwaukee Road boxcabs, Bi-Polars, and even the famous Little Joes bringing in and leaving with the railroad’s plush passenger train, the Olympian Hiawatha. However, these unique operations were to be short lived. After only 50 years of service the Milwaukee Road pulled out of the passenger market to the Pacific Northwest in 1961, throwing in the towel to NP and GN, both of whom were just too well established by the time the Milwaukee had launched its train in the late 1940s. Union Pacific would carry on operations for another ten years at Union Station until it too stopped calling there in 1971.

After UP left so too did any chance of seeing passenger trains ever again at the station. The approaches and staging tracks at the building were soon demolished to make way for the ever-growing development of downtown Seattle and large skyscrapers now stand where these tracks once stood.

Amazingly, while the building was left for dead, it somehow survived and was beautifully restored in the 1990s, reopening to the public in 1999. Today, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and houses offices of such entities as Sound Transit, the commuter rail agency that serves the Puget Sound region.

For more information about the history of Union Station please click here to visit this web page.

For more reading about railroad stations you might want to consider a copy of Railroad Stations from author Brian Solomon. While the book is just a very general overview of some of the great stations that once stood in this country it is quite good with lots of historical photographs, including that of Grand Central Terminal and the late Pennsylvania Station (it also gives a history of the thousands of small depots that existed in most communities). All in all if you’re interested in stations and depots you’re sure to enjoy Mr. Solomon’s book on the subject.