"Union Station" is a generic name, and means it serves
more than one railroad, that is, that they have "united" to
operate out of one station.
Perhaps one of the most noted examples at one time was
the Union Station in St. Louis, perhaps served by more
railroads than any other. It was owned and operated by
the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, which, as
its name suggests, is owned by the railroads serving St.
Louis. It still has very extensive freight operations,
handling very much, if not most, of the interchange
through St. Louis. It is so extensive, in fact, that it
has its own historial society.
Where there were more than one station in a city
used by multiple railroads, which one used the name "Union
Station" was more or less a local matter and partly a
matter of custom. In Fort Worth, for example, the T&P
Passenger Station was used also by the Burlington (Fort
Worth & Denver) and perhaps others. A interesting fact
was that Fort Worth to Houston and Galveston the
Burlington and Rock Island operated the former Trinity
& Brazos Valley jointly, so the Sam Houston Zephyr (Fort
Worth-Houston) and the Texas Zephyr (Denver-Dallas)
used the T&P station, while the Twin Star Rocket (Twin
Cities-Fort Worth-Houston) and later Texas Rocket (Kansas
City-Fort Worth) used the Santa Fe or Union Station.
But they all used Union Station in Dallas.
Quite often, as Dr. Levine says, the union station
company also controlled operations, had rule books and
special instructions, and issued employee timetables.
Wes Leatherock
wleath@s...
On Sat, 9 Dec 2000, Stephen J. Levine wrote:
> John
>
> Union Stations, as with many other stations, were often jointly owned by
> multiple railroads, usually through a separate corporation that controlled
> both
> the terminal and, sometimes, railroad operations within.
>
> An interesting Union Station owned by one railroad was the Union Station in
> Fort
> Worth, owned by the Santa Fe, and also known as Santa Fe Station. It is the
> current Amtrak station in that city, although no longer owned by the Santa Fe
> (actually BNSF now), but rather a private party.
>
> sjl
>
> John N Shankland wrote:
>
> > > You've raised an interesting question. Union Stations occurred
> > > when two or
> > > more railroads joined together with a common station. There were
> > > (and still
> > > are) depots that are joint facilities of two or more railroads
> > > which aren't
> > > referred to as Union Stations. Quite often (perhaps always)
> > > Union Stations
> > > were operated by a jointly-owned subsidiary corporation, whereas joint
> > > agencies didn't have a separate corporate existence.
> >
> > Interesting that they all picked the same name, or that it was allowed. The
> > ??/?? railroads were allowed to name their place Union Station in Cincinnati
> > for example. You would think that who ever had the name first would have
> > objected to the next guys naming theirs the same. It made me think that
> > maybe there was a Union Station Company that was involved. Found the land,
> > built the building, sold, leased, whatever to a group of railroads.
> >
> > Seems peculiar also that ( or at least by todays practices) that the RR's
> > consented to a station name that didn't include their names. Could it be
> > that they rented space or paid fees like the Airlines do? O'Hare is owned
> > by the City of Chicago, hence no United Airlines in the name.
> >
> > John S
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
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