Hartford Union Station is a railroad station in Hartford, Connecticut, United States on the

New Haven–Springfield Line The New Haven–Springfield Line is a railroad line owned by Amtrak from New Haven, Connecticut, north to Springfield, Massachusetts. As a branch of the Northeast Corridor just north of New Haven State Street station, it is served by approximate ...

. It is served by

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 ...

, , , and

intercity rail Inter-city rail services are express passenger train services that run services that connect cities over longer distances than commuter or regional trains. There is no precise definition of inter-city rail; its meaning may vary from country ...

service, plus

CT Rail CT Rail, stylized as CT''rail'', is the brand for commuter rail services overseen by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT), in the U.S. state of Connecticut, with some service extending into Massachusetts. CTDOT oversees two lines: ...

Hartford Line The Hartford Line is a commuter rail service between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, using the Amtrak-owned New Haven–Springfield Line. The project is a joint venture between the states of Connecticut and Massachuset ...

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Downtown, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter r ...

service and

CTfastrak CTfastrak (constructed as the New Britain-Hartford Busway) is a regional bus rapid transit system currently operating between downtown Hartford and Downtown New Britain station in New Britain in central Connecticut. Operated by Connecticut Tran ...

bus rapid transit service. The Richardsonian Romanesque building was designed by George Keller, executed by

Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious, and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Henry ...

and built in 1889. A 1914 fire required a rebuild; the interior was renovated in 1987. It has been 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 ...

since 1975.

Architecture

The station is located on the western edge of downtown Hartford, on a three-acre () block between Union Place and Spruce Street on the east and west and Church and Asylum streets to the north and south.Clouette, Bruce; ;

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

; July 9, 1975, retrieved April 9, 2011. Opposite the main building on Union Place are a mixture of other old buildings and parking lots. To the west is a triangular parking lot and the viaduct carrying Interstate 84 and

U.S. Route 6 U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, honoring the American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system. While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to P ...

, which curves around the north of the station as well. Across Asylum on the south is

Bushnell Park Bushnell Park in Hartford, Connecticut is the oldest publicly funded park in the United States. It was conceived by the Reverend Horace Bushnell in the mid-1850s at a time when the need for open public spaces was just starting to be recognized. ...

, also listed on the Register. The main building is located between the tracks and Union Place. It is a three-story rectangular building in rough-faced Portland brownstone with two smaller, similarly shaped two-story wings on the north and south. The main building has a flat roof; the wings are

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d and tiled, with dormer windows piercing them at regular intervals. On the east (front) facade, a wide set of steps rises to the main entrance, beneath a flat hood at the springlines of three of the large segmental arches that run across the first story. Above these is a stylized floral molded course. The second story has similar but smaller segmental arches set with a recessed panel and four-pane windows. The central bay has "1914" carved into its panel; all others are blank. The two wings have four-pane rectangular windows. At the station level were originally four tracks (currently one) divided by a middle platform. Two sets of iron roofs create a train shed. On the wall side those roofs are supported by spiral-shaped iron

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or ' ...

. In the middle columns and simple curved iron brackets support the

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...

es that hold up the shed roof. The interior has been remodeled since the station was rebuilt. It is a mostly open area with stairs along the west wall leading up to the elevated tracks and benches along the east. Flooring is red tile. There are offices on the north and south; some look out over the main space.

History

The station was built in 1889, and served the

Hartford and New Haven Railroad The Hartford and New Haven Railroad (H&NH), chartered in 1833, was the first railroad built in the state of Connecticut and an important direct predecessor of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The company was formed to connect the ...

Central New England Railway The Central New England Railway was a railroad from Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, west across northern Connecticut and across the Hudson River on the Poughkeepsie Bridge to Maybrook, New York. It was part of the Poughkee ...

, Hartford and Connecticut Valley Railroad (all of which were acquired by the

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

) and the

New York and New England Railroad The New York and New England Railroad (NY&NE) was a railroad connecting southern New York State with Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Boston, Massachusetts. It operated under that name from 1873 to 1893. Prior to 1873 it was ...

, but the entire structure had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1914. It was listed on the

as "Hartford Union Station" in 1975. The station is currently served by one track and a side platform. The second track and platform were removed by Amtrak in the 1990s to reduce maintenance costs and because the underlying structure is no longer strong enough to support more than one train at a time. A section of the platform was converted to high level for accessible boarding as part of the

project. It features a -wide hinged edge that can be flipped up to allow wide freight trains to pass. The new platform opened on August 4, 2016.

service started on June 16, 2018.

service began on March 28, 2015, after fifteen years of planning and three years of construction. The I-84 Hartford Project may require realigning the highway and rail line, in which case new platforms would be constructed on the new alignment, though Union Station would continue to be used for ticketing and waiting area. The state released a slate of 5 options - some just west of the current station, others slightly to the south - in October 2017. A decision on which option will be built was expected in early 2018.

Services

Rail

AmtrakRegionalSpringfieldShuttleatHartford

Hartford is situated midway along the

, a non-electrified branch of the electrified Northeast Corridor. Amtrak operates four services through Hartford, with a total of about sixteen trains per day in each direction. Four Amtrak services run on the New Haven–Springfield Line with a stop at Hartford: the , the , some service, and the .

commuter rail service is split between Amtrak trains and

ConnDOT The Connecticut Department of Transportation (often referred to as CTDOT and occasionally ConnDOT, or CDOT) is responsible for the development and operation of highways, railroads, mass transit systems, ports and waterways in Connecticut.

(CTrail) trains.

Bus

Union Station serves as the northeastern terminus for

, a bus rapid transit system operating between the station and in central

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

. Operated by

Connecticut Transit CTtransit (styled as CT ''transit'') is a bus system serving much of the U.S. state of Connecticut and is a division of that state's Department of Transportation. CTtransit provides bus service via contract providers for seven different ...

, Five local and four express routes operate along the busway and over on-street loops in downtown Hartford. CTTransit's Hartford Division provides local and express bus service to the station on a variety of routes, including lines 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 69, 72, 74, 76, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 94, 95, 96, 101, 102, 121, 128, 901, 903, 904, 905, 906, 907, 909, 910, 912, 913, 914, 915, 917, 918, 921, 923, 924, 925, 926, 927, 950, Asylum Hill Shuttle (AHS), Columbus Boulevard Shuttle Connector (CB) and DASH.

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 ...

Peter Pan Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythi ...

and FlixBus serves Union Station with intercity bus service.

References

External links

Hartford – Hartford Line
{{National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut, state=collapsed

Hartford Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

CTfastrak Bus stations in Hartford County, Connecticut Railway stations in Hartford County, Connecticut Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut Stations on the New Haven–Springfield Line Stations along New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad lines Stations along Central New England Railway lines Stations along New York and New England Railroad lines

Buildings and structures in Hartford, Connecticut National Register of Historic Places in Hartford, Connecticut Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Connecticut Railway stations in the United States opened in 1889 George Keller buildings 1889 establishments in Connecticut