The Indianapolis Union Station is an intercity train station in the
Wholesale District of
Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...
. The terminal is served by
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
's ''
Cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
'' line, passing through Indianapolis three times weekly.
Indianapolis was the first city in the world to devise a
union station
A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
, in 1848. The station building opened on September 20, 1853, at 39 Jackson Place, operated by the
Indianapolis Union Railway
The Indianapolis Union Railway Company , is a terminal railroad operating in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was organized on May 31, 1850, as the Union Track Railway Company by the presidents of the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad (M&I), the Terr ...
. A much larger
Richardsonian Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...
station was designed by Pittsburgh architect Thomas Rodd and constructed at the same location beginning in November 1886 and opening in September 1888. The head house (main waiting area and office) and clock tower of this second station still stand today.
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
, the national rail passenger carrier, continues to serve Union Station from a waiting area beneath the train shed. It is served by the ''
Cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
'' (Chicago-New York City, via Cincinnati and Washington, DC), and was the eastern terminus of the ''
Hoosier State
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th st ...
'' until its discontinuation on June 30, 2019.
Architecture
Thomas Rodd's design clearly shows the influence of architect
Henry Hobson Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA (September 29, 1838 – April 27, 1886) was an American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one ...
(1838–1886). Historian James R. Hetheringon has concluded that Pittsburgher Rodd would have studied the nearly completed
Allegheny County Courthouse
The Allegheny County Courthouse in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is part of a complex (along with the old Allegheny County Jail) designed by H. H. Richardson. The buildings are considered among the finest examples of the Romanesque Revi ...
designed by Richardson prior to his death in 1886. Considered by Richardson to be his best work, the Courthouse was highly influential, with the Union Station one of the oldest surviving examples.
The three-story Union Station is built of
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
and
brick
A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
trimmed with Hummelstown brownstone, with a battered
water table
The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated.
T ...
and massive brick arches characteristic of the Romanesque. It features an enormous
rose window
Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' w ...
, slate roof,
bartizan
A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging, wall-mounted turret projecting from the walls of late medieval and early-modern fortifications from the ...
s at section corners, and a soaring clock tower. The 1888 station included a large street-level iron
train shed
A train shed is a building adjacent to a station building where the tracks and platforms of a railway station are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof. Its primary purpose is to store and protect from the elements train car ...
.
[ ''Note:'' This includes ]
Site map
and Accompanying photographs
History
Early history
![Main Passenger Railroad Station, Union Depot, Indianapolis](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Main_Passenger_Railroad_Station%2C_Union_Depot%2C_Indianapolis.jpg)
The first railroad to reach Indianapolis was the
Madison and Indianapolis Railroad, which began service there in 1847. Competing railroads began connecting Indianapolis to other locations, but each had its own station in various parts of the young city, creating problems for passengers and freight alike. This problem was common to many U.S. cities, but Indianapolis was the first to solve it with a union station, which all railroads were to use. In August 1849, the
Union Railway Company
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
was formed, and it began to lay tracks to connect the various railroads. Then in 1853, it built a large brick train shed at the point where all the lines met.
Between these dates, nearby
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...
had built
Columbus Union Station in 1851, becoming the first union station built. However, Indianapolis's station had more elements of a cooperative union station, especially as the Columbus station had one railroad lease space to another, while the Indianapolis station was a joint effort and ownership agreement.
As Indianapolis and its railroad traffic grew, the limitations of the original structure became increasingly obvious. In 1886, Thomas Rodd was hired. At the time, Rodd was employed by the
Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...
, but did independent civil engineering and architectural projects on the side. The new station was completed in 1888,
and during 1889 320,996 passenger train cars (across 45,204 trains) and 861,991 freight cars passed through the station. In 1893, approximately 25,000 passengers rode an average of 120 passenger trains daily.
By 1900, over 200 trains a day were being serviced, forcing the station to eventually build an expansive train shed on an elevated platform (built from 1915 to 1922) so as not to interfere with regular street traffic. It was once second only to
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
's
Union Station
A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
as a Midwest railroad hub.
After World War II
In the 1940s, several railroads still called at the station: the
Baltimore & Ohio
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...
, the
Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railroad
The Monon Railroad , also known as the Chicago, Indianapolis, and Louisville Railway from 1897 to 1971, was an American railroad that operated almost entirely within the state of Indiana. The Monon was merged into the Louisville and Nashville Ra ...
(''Monon Railroad''), the
Illinois Central
The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the Central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also co ...
, the
New York Central
The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...
, the
New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad (''Nickel Plate Road''), and the
Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...
. After World War II, intercity passenger rail travel in the United States began to decline.
Passenger services, particularly named trains, at the union station included:
Decline
![4 Roger Puta New York Central Photos (27437394680)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/4_Roger_Puta_New_York_Central_Photos_%2827437394680%29.jpg)
Throughout the 1960s and well into the
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
era, the number of train passengers declined to such a trickle that, in cities in which rail stations did not serve commuter traffic, most were allowed to physically decline to a point where many were closed and some demolished. Indianapolis's Union Station almost suffered that fate. By the late 1970s, vagrants and vandals had taken over much of the facility and numerous police and fire runs were made to the cavernous building. Local business and political leaders began looking for some way to preserve Union Station and transform it into a vital part of the city again. Also in the 1970s, Amtrak planned to run its proposed
AutoTrak
AutoTrak was a planned motorail service that was to be operated by Amtrak between Indianapolis, Indiana, and Poinciana, Florida. The AutoTrak service was to be Amtrak's answer to the Auto-Train, which, at the time, was operated by the private Au ...
service out of the Indianapolis Union Station, but this planned service was ultimately scrapped.
In 1971, the city's mayor allocated $197,000 toward purchasing the building.
![Interior of Union Station, Indianapolis, 1988](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Interior_of_Union_Station%2C_Indianapolis%2C_1988.jpg)
The station was placed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
on July 14, 1982.
Beginning in 1984, the facility was renovated and converted from its primary use as a railroad station to a
festival marketplace A festival marketplace is a European-style shopping market in the United States. It is an effort to revitalize downtown areas in major US cities begun in the late 20th century.
Festival marketplaces were a leading downtown revitalization strategy ...
. The Indianapolis architecture firm of
Woollen, Molzan and Partners
Woollen, Molzan and Partners (WMP) is a U.S.-based second-generation architecture, interior design, and planning firm that Evans Woollen III founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1955. The firm was previously known as Evans Woollen and Associates a ...
was responsible for the restoration of the station's historic shed, which reopened in 1986. Union Station became a collection of restaurants, nightclubs, and specialty stores that included an NBC Store and a model train retailer. The eastern end of the former train platform area featured a large food court, plus several self-contained bars and nightclubs. Statues of individuals who might have been seen in the railroad station in prior years were installed throughout the facility. The 273-room
Crowne Plaza
Crowne Plaza is a British multinational chain of full service, upscale hotels headquartered in the United Kingdom. It caters to business travelers and the meetings and conventions market. It forms part of the InterContinental Hotels Group family ...
Hotel took up much of the western portion of the train shed, with 26 of its rooms being housed within thirteen old
Pullman car
In the United States, Pullman was used to refer to railroad sleeping cars that were built and operated on most U.S. railroads by the Pullman Company (founded by George Pullman) from 1867 to December 31, 1968.
Other uses
Pullman also refers to rai ...
s.
In 1997, the facility's marketplace era concluded with the departure of the last non-hotel and non-transportation tenant: a
Hooters
Hooters is the registered trademark used by two American restaurant chains: Hooters, Inc., based in Clearwater, Florida, and Hooters of America, Inc. based in Atlanta, Georgia, and owned by the private investment firm Nord Bay Capital (with ...
restaurant, which relocated to another nearby downtown building. The September 1995 opening of the
Circle Centre Mall
Circle Centre Mall is an indoor shopping mall located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Circle Centre Mall was opened to the public on September 8, 1995, and incorporates existing downtown structures such as the former L. S. Ayres flagship ...
, just a block to the north, had drawn off the overwhelming majority of Union Station's retail customers. A planned pedestrian bridge between these two structures had been denied by officials for historic preservation reasons, and a direct underground connection was deemed to not be economically feasible. The city of Indianapolis was forced to take ownership of Union Station and began to try to find another reuse for much of the building. After some time, it began leasing out space for a wide variety of purposes, including office use and an indoor go-kart track.
21st century
![Indianapolis Union Station and Crowne Plaza Hotel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Indianapolis_Union_Station_and_Crowne_Plaza_Hotel.jpg)
In 2002, the 21st Century
Charter School
A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of auto ...
was started within the facility. The still-successful hotel expanded to take up a larger portion of the building. Additional companies and organizations began to inquire about and lease space in the station. In 2006, tenants included
Bands of America
Bands of America (BOA) is a music education advocacy organization and promoter of high school marching band competitions in the United States, such as the annual Grand National Championships. Established in 1975 as Marching Bands of America (MBA), ...
, the Consulate of Mexico (which has since relocated elsewhere downtown), the
Indiana Museum of African American History, the
Japan-America Society of Indiana, and the
Indiana Pacers
The Indiana Pacers are an American professional basketball team based in Indianapolis. The Pacers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The Pacers were first esta ...
academy (another charter school). Many of the building's internal directories still display Spanish as well as English, reflecting the demographic changes in Indianapolis, as well as being a left over from the days when the building housed the Mexican Consulate. The Grand Hall of Union Station is also rented out for banquets and other special events.
In January 2011, a new underground walkway between the newly-expanded
Indiana Convention Center
The Indiana Convention Center is a major convention center located in Downtown Indianapolis, Downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. The original structure was completed in 1972 and has undergone five expansions. In total, there are 71 meeting rooms, 11 ...
(ICC) and nearby
Lucas Oil Stadium
Lucas Oil Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. It replaced the RCA Dome as the home field of the National Football League (NFL)'s Indianapolis Colts and opened on August 16, 2008. The stadium was ...
opened. It also contains a connection to the Crowne Plaza hotel at the west end of Union Station. This climate-controlled pedestrian path replaces an above-ground link between the hotel and the now-demolished
RCA Dome
The RCA Dome (originally Hoosier Dome) was a domed stadium in Indianapolis. It was the home of the Indianapolis Colts NFL franchise for 24 seasons (1984– 2007).
It was completed at a cost of $77.5 million, as part of the Indiana Convention Ce ...
, which stood where the new wing of the convention center is now situated.
Passenger train service has been very limited in the Amtrak era. When Amtrak began operations in 1971, it ran three trains through Indianapolis–the ''
South Wind
A south wind is a wind that originates in the south and blows in a northward direction.
Words used in English to describe the south wind are auster, buster (a violent south gale), föhn/foehn (alps), ghibli (Libya with various spellings), friagem ...
,'' the ''
James Whitcomb Riley
James Whitcomb Riley (October 7, 1849 – July 22, 1916) was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry. His ...
'', and the ''
Spirit of St. Louis
The ''Spirit of St. Louis'' (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlant ...
.'' However, most of these trains ran over deteriorating
Penn Central
The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...
trackage, and Amtrak eventually routed all of them away from Indianapolis except for the ''
National Limited
The ''National Limited'' was the premier train of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) on its route between Jersey City, New Jersey and St. Louis, Missouri, with major station stops in Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio. (Buses took passenge ...
,'' successor of the ''Spirit of St. Louis.''
Amtrak withdrew the ''National Limited'' in 1979, severing Indianapolis from the national rail network. It also isolated Amtrak's primary maintenance facility, the
Beech Grove Shops
The Beech Grove Shops is a railway maintenance facility in Beech Grove, Indiana, outside Indianapolis. Beech Grove is Amtrak's primary maintenance facility. It also contains a very large freight yard.
History
The shops were originally constructe ...
in nearby
Beech Grove. Rail service returned to Indianapolis in 1980, when the ''
Hoosier State
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th st ...
'' began running daily to Chicago. Northbound trains would leave in the morning, while southbound trains would arrive in the evening. It was joined in 1986 by the New York-to-Chicago ''
Cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
,.'' successor of the ''James Whitcomb Riley.'' For most of the time from 1986 until Indiana withdrew its support for the train in June 2019, the ''Hoosier State'' ran on the four days that the ''Cardinal'' did not operate, thereby providing daily service along the route.
From 1999 to 2003, the station was served by the ''
Kentucky Cardinal
The ''Kentucky Cardinal'' was a nightly passenger train operated by Amtrak from 1999 to 2003 between Chicago, Illinois, and Louisville, Kentucky, via Indianapolis, Indiana. On the three days that the ''Cardinal (passenger train), Cardinal'' ran ...
,'' an extension of the ''Hoosier State'' that ran to
Louisville
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
, operating as a section of the ''Cardinal'' on the days that the ''Cardinal'' ran. The southbound train split from the eastbound ''Cardinal'' at Union Station, while the northbound train joined the westbound ''Cardinal'' for the journey to Chicago. With the discontinuation of the ''Hoosier State'', Indianapolis is served by only one train for only the second time in its history.
The station is served by two
Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach
Amtrak Thruway is a system of through-ticketed transportation services to connect passengers with areas not served by Amtrak trains. In most cases these are dedicated motorcoach routes, but can also be non-dedicated intercity bus services, transit ...
lines–one serving western and central Illinois (the
Quad Cities
The Quad Cities is a region of cities (originally four, see History) in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are t ...
,
Peoria,
Bloomington-Normal,
Champaign-Urbana, and
Danville) and another that stops at Nashville, Louisville, and Cincinnati en route to Chicago.
Since 1979, Amtrak passengers use a waiting area in the southern portion of Union Station's old train shed, at street level along Illinois Street. The Amtrak station is co-located with the city's
Greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurge ...
bus depot, making this a multi-modal transportation hub, albeit a small one. , there is no
commuter or
light rail service in Indianapolis. The Greyhound ticket office is located along a wall opposite the Amtrak ticket office.
In FY 2013, Indianapolis averaged about 99 passengers daily, among the fewest for a station serving a metropolitan area of more than two million people. It is the busiest stop in Indiana served by Amtrak.
The 1888 station building is mostly leased for offices to pay for the building upkeep. The city struggled with finding a use for the building that is financially viable and high-profile. The Crowne Plaza Hotel still operates in the train shed structure, and leases out the main concourse, the Grand Hall, for weddings and other events.
Gallery
August 1970 GENERAL VIEW OF BUILDING FROM NORTHEAST - Union Station, Jackson Place and Illinois Street, Indianapolis, Marion County, IN HABS IND,49-IND,20-3.tif, North front, 1970
File:August 1970 TOWER FROM EAST - Union Station, Jackson Place and Illinois Street, Indianapolis, Marion County, IN HABS IND,49-IND,20-8.tif, Tower detail, 1970
File:Union station Indianapolis.jpg, South Illinois Street entrance
File:Historic American Buildings Survey, Aug 1970 TRAIN GATES, MAIN FLOOR.jpg, Train gates, 1970
File:Union Station - Ind 01a.JPG, Main hall
File:Waiting room at Indianapolis Union Station, February 2017.jpg, Waiting room
File:Indy Union Station Rails2.jpg, Platforms
See also
*
List of Amtrak stations
This is a list of train stations and Thruway Motorcoach stops used by Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation in the United States). This list is in alphabetical order by station or stop name, which mostly corresponds to the city ...
*
List of Greyhound Bus stations
The following is a list of stations or terminals used by Greyhound Lines, either currently in use or historic former Greyhound stations.
Canada
*Gare d'autocars de Montréal, Montreal
*Union Station Bus Terminal, Toronto
*Pacific Central Sta ...
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Center Township, Marion County, Indiana
*
Transportation in Indianapolis
Transportation in Indianapolis consists of a complex network that includes a local public bus system, several private intercity bus providers, Amtrak passenger rail service, four freight rail lines, an Interstate Highway System, two airports, a he ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
Indianapolis Amtrak Station (USA Rail Guide -- Train Web)''Rethinking Adaptive Reuse, or, How Not to Save a Great Urban Terminal''by Erik Ledbetter
*
{{Authority control
Amtrak stations in Indiana
Bus stations in Indiana
National Register of Historic Places in Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana
Buildings and structures in Indianapolis
Clock towers in Indiana
Transportation in Indianapolis
Former Illinois Central Railroad stations
Former Pennsylvania Railroad stations
Former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad stations
Former New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad stations
Former New York Central Railroad stations
Former Monon Railroad stations
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1853
Transportation buildings and structures in Marion County, Indiana