Union Station (or Pennsylvania Station, commonly called Penn Station) is a historic

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing s ...

Downtown Pittsburgh Downtown Pittsburgh, colloquially referred to as the Golden Triangle, and officially the Central Business District, is the urban downtown center of Pittsburgh. It is located at the confluence of the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River whose ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, United States. It was one of several passenger rail stations that served Pittsburgh during the 20th century (other stations included the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Station, the Baltimore and Ohio Station and

Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal __NOTOC__ The Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal was a railroad station located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Constructed in 1903 and opened on April 13, 1904, the 11 floor Beaux-Arts domed 197 foot tall terminal was designed by Th ...

), and it is the only surviving station in active use. The historic station was designed by Chicago architect

Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...

and built from 1898 to 1904. The station's rotunda was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, followed by the entire building in 1976. In the 1980s, the Burnham station building was converted to apartment use, while Amtrak moved to an annex on the building's east side.

History

The current station replaced the original Union Station destroyed in 1877. Unlike many

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 company, railway companies, allowi ...

s built in the U.S. to serve the needs of more than one

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...

, this facility connected 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 ...

with several subsidiary lines; for that reason, it was renamed in 1912 to match other

Pennsylvania Station Pennsylvania Station (often abbreviated Penn Station) is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to several of its grand passenger terminals. Several are still in active use by Amtrak and other transportation services; others have been ...

s. Thus, ''Union Station'' is a misnomer, as other major passenger rail carriers served travelers at other stations. For instance, 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 ...

used Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Station, the

Wabash Railroad The Wabash Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. It served a large area, including track in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri and the province of Ontario. Its primary co ...

used

, and the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 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 ...

used both the Baltimore and Ohio Station and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Station. The station building was designed by Chicago architect

and built between 1898–1904. The materials were a grayish-brown

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta i ...

that looked like

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Typ ...

, 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 ...

. Though Burnham is regarded more as a planner and organizer rather than a designer of details, which were left to draftsmen like Peter Joseph Weber, the most extraordinary feature of the monumental

is his: the rotunda with corner pavilions. At street level, the rotunda sheltered turning spaces for carriages beneath wide, low vaulted spaces that owed little to any historicist style. Above, the rotunda sheltered passengers in a spectacular

waiting room A waiting room or waiting hall is a building, or more commonly a part of a building or a room, where people sit or stand until the event or appointment for which they are waiting begins. There are two types of waiting room. One has individuals ...

. Burnham's firm completed more than a dozen projects in Pittsburgh, some on quite prominent sites. The rotunda is listed 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 ...

. Service began at the station on October 12, 1901. On January 3, 1954, the

announced a $ ( dollars) in expansion and renovation for the complex. To the beginning of the 1970s, the station remained a major stop for several of the PRR's leading east-west trains: ''

Broadway Limited The ''Broadway Limited'' was a passenger train operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) between New York City and Chicago. It operated from 1912 to 1995. It was the Pennsylvania's premier train, competing directly with the New York Central Ra ...

'' (Chicago-New York), '' Manhattan Limited'' (Chicago-New York); '' Penn Texas'' (St. Louis-New York) and ''

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 transatlanti ...

'' (St. Louis-New York). Hugh llewelyn 4296 (5961576142)

By the late 1970s the Penn Central Corporation was accepting bids for the complex and it was purchased by the US General Services Administration. There were proposals in 1978 to make the structure into a federal office building, a new city hall and a senior citizens apartment building. Amtrak proposed that the whole structure remain a train station and rail offices. In 1974, the County Council proposed having the station be the site of the then-planned David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The Buncher Development Company had an option to buy the property as late as 1984. A $20 million restoration of Union Station began in 1986 to convert the office tower into apartments. It is now called ''The Pennsylvanian'' and opened to residents on May 23, 1988. The concourse, which is no longer open to the public, was transformed into a lobby for commercial spaces on the ground floor and the paint cleaned off the great central skylight. The rotunda, which once offered shelter for carriages to turn around, is now closed to vehicular traffic; modern cars and trucks are too heavy for the brick road surface and risk caving in the roof to the parking garage below it.

Current passenger service

Union Station continues to serve as an active railway station, but through an annex on the Liberty Avenue side of the building. It is the western terminus of

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

's '' Pennsylvanian'' route and is along the ''

Capitol Limited The ''Capitol Limited'' is a daily Amtrak train between Washington, D.C., and Chicago, running via Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Service began in 1981 and was named after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's ''Capitol Limited'' which ended in 1971 u ...

'' route. Until 2005, Pittsburgh was also serviced by the '' Three Rivers'' (a replacement service for the legendary ''

''), an extended version of the ''Pennsylvanian'' that terminated in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Its cancellation marked the first time in Pittsburgh's railway history that the city was served by just two daily passenger trains (the ''Pennsylvanian'' and ''Capitol Limited''). Union Station's Amtrak station code is PGH.

Architecture

In September 1978, ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' art critic

Brendan Gill Brendan Gill (October 4, 1914 – December 27, 1997) was an American journalist. He wrote for ''The New Yorker'' for more than 60 years. Gill also contributed film criticism for ''Film Comment'', wrote about design and architecture for Architectu ...

proclaimed that Pittsburgh's Penn Station is "one of the great pieces of

Beaux-Arts architecture Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorpor ...

in America... ne of thesymbols of the nation."

Bus rapid transit

Pittsburgh Regional Transit operates a

bus rapid transit Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway or transitway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to have much more capacity, reliability and other quality features than a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes ...

station served by the

Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway The Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway is a two-lane bus-only highway serving the city of Pittsburgh and many of its eastern neighborhoods and suburbs. It was named after Martin Luther King Jr. in recognition of the eastern portion of the rou ...

. In 1988, the transit agency opened a light rail station at the site, operating regular shuttle service to Steel Plaza, as well as two 42S afternoon rush-hour trains that terminated at the station. However, the line was difficult to integrate into other services, since it used a portion of an old single-tracked former Pennsylvania Railroad tunnel. This tunnel travels beneath the

US Steel Tower The U.S. Steel Tower, also known as the Steel Building or USX Tower (1988–2001), is a 64-story skyscraper at 600 Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The interior has of leasable space. Standing tall, it is the tallest bu ...

, and the building's structural supports are on each side of the tunnel, prohibiting the installation of a second track. 19940529 01 PAT LRT, Penn Station, Pittsburgh (5247864668)

19940529 01 PAT LRT, Penn Station, Pittsburgh (5247864668)

The shuttle service was discontinued in 1993, but the two 42S afternoon rush-hour trains continued to serve the station until 2007. Pittsburgh Regional Transit did not issue an official reasoning for the reduction, and later discontinuation, of service; however, it may be attributed to the aforementioned infrastructure limitations as well as limited ridership. Since 2007, the station has seen occasional use, mostly for charters or special events, such as part of the agency's detoured transportation routes following

Super Bowl XLV Super Bowl XLV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Green Bay Packers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...

on February 6, 2011 and as part of the "Railvolution" transit convention in October 2018.

Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus connections

*1 - Freeport Road *11 - Fineview *39 - Brookline *40 - Mount Washington *44 - Knoxville *P1 - East Busway All Stops *P2 - East Busway Short *P7 - McKeesport Flyer *P10 - Allegheny Valley Flyer *P12 - Holiday Park Flyer *P13 - Mount Royal Flyer *P16 - Penn Hills Flyer *P17 - Lincoln Park Flyer *P67 - Monroeville Flyer *P68 - Braddock Hills Flyer *P69 - Trafford Flyer *P71 - Swissvale Flyer *P78 - Oakmont Flyer

Suburban transit connections

* Beaver County Transit Authority Route 1 * Butler Transit Authority * Fayette Area Coordinated Transportation Commuter * New Castle Area Transit Authority Route 71 * Washington City Transit Washington-Pittsburgh * Westmoreland County Transit Authority All Pittsburgh Routes except Route 4

Intercity bus connections

Grant Street Transportation Center

Across the street is the Grant Street Transportation Center. It serves as an intercity bus station for: *

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 resurgenc ...

Fullington Trailways The Trailways Transportation System is an American network of approximately 70 independent bus companies that have entered into a brand licensing agreement. The company is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. History The predecessor to Trailwa ...

* Mountain Line Transit Authority * Mid Mon Valley Transit Authority Commuter A

Gallery

Image:Pittsburgh Union Station Rotunda 1876px.jpg, The rotunda File:Pittsburgh Union Station clock.jpg, Exterior clock File:Union Station - Pittsburgh.jpg, Union Station, ca. 1910 File:Pittsburgh Penn Station.jpg, East Busway station near the railroad building. File:Pittsburgh LRT Penn Station 2.jpg, T station, with no regular service since 1993

References

External links

Images of Union Station, PittsburghThe Pennsylvanian
* * *
Magazine article from ''Railway Age'' (1901) with floor plan
{{Authority control Beaux-Arts architecture in Pennsylvania Railway stations in Pittsburgh History of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Railway stations in the United States opened in 1903 Transit centers in the United States Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmarks Skyscraper office buildings in Pittsburgh Residential buildings in Pittsburgh Residential condominiums in the United States Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Clock towers in Pennsylvania Historic American Buildings Survey in Pennsylvania National Register of Historic Places in Pittsburgh 1903 establishments in Pennsylvania Former Pennsylvania Railroad stations Port Authority of Allegheny County stations Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway