Journey to the Golden Age of Railroad Stations

“It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, ‘As pretty as an airport.’”—Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

When Douglas Adams’s quote above was published in 1988, it was mostly true. With few exceptions, such as Eero Saarinen’s Dulles Airport and the TWA Terminal at JFK, mid-20th-century airports were designed more for efficiently getting people on and off airplanes and connecting them with their baggage and a taxi than in giving them a grand, awe-inspiring, welcoming experience. Los Angeles International Airport, for example, featured the futuristic, spider-legged Theme Building, but the terminals themselves lacked much in the way of character.

Even nowadays, when much more attention is given to wowing airplane passengers, the grand terminal spaces tend to be on the departing side. On arrival, passengers are typically herded to a lower-level baggage claim area, then out the door to taxis or cars. It’s even worse for international flights. Passengers entering a country must walk through seemingly endless passageways (if they’re lucky, they’ll get moving walkways) to a large, characterless hall where they wait for the immigration check, then baggage claim and out the door. What kind of welcome is that?

It wasn’t always that way. In the golden age of railroads, from around 1850 to 1940, urban terminals were the gateways to cities, designed to overwhelm new visitors as well as regular commuters. Train stations were more than functional buildings; they were statements of urban pride.

A recent visit to London impressed this on me. I arrived at Heathrow Airport after a 10-hour flight and was greeted not by any grand spaces, but by a lot of efficiently designed but uninspiring rooms and passageways leading through immigration and baggage claim to the Heathrow Express train’s underground platform. Exiting the train at Paddington Station, however, was an entirely different experience. I stepped into a vast space covered by large, glazed vaults and wrought-iron arches, inspired by the Crystal Palace (which still existed when Paddington was built). It is a truly grand way to be welcomed to London. [1]

This is true of all the surviving Victorian-era railroad terminals around central London: Waterloo (opened in 1848), King’s Cross (1852, upper middle photo), Paddington (1854, lower right photo), Victoria (1860, lower left photo), Charing Cross (1864, lower middle photo), St. Pancras (1868, upper left photo), Liverpool Street (1875, upper right photo), and Marylebone (1899). [2] These buildings all present grand, monumental spaces to impress London’s visitors, with Paddington and St. Pancras being the most spectacular. [3] Each of these terminals, often with an adjoining hotel, was built by a railroad company, who competed with the other companies to make the most impressive terminal. Paddington, for instance, was built by the Great Western Railway, and the GWR logo can be seen throughout the station and hotel. (The spaciousness of the buildings was also driven by 19th-century railroad technology: The coal-fired engines coughed out a lot of dirty smoke, so the vast vaulted spaces kept the smoke away from people on the platforms.)

Most of London’s stations suffered damage from the Nazi Blitz during World War II. That damage was repaired; however, modern urban renewal has proved more permanently destructive. Euston Station (opened in 1837) was demolished in 1961 and replaced by a bland 1960s’ modernist building. Cannon Street Station (1866) was demolished in the late 1950s and replaced by an efficient, airport-like lower-level train terminal topped by an office block. Of the now-gone Victorian stations, London Bridge Station (1836) has fared the best. The old station is gone, but the new one is part of the Shard.

Entering these stations is like stepping into a glorious past. They project energy, enthusiasm, and pride, and inspire awe in ways usually reserved for places of worship. We might say they are cathedrals of progress and industry, from a time when progress and industry were seen unreservedly as good things.

American cities also had their grand railroad terminals. Chicago, thanks to its position at the southern tip of Lake Michigan, was in the path of many railroads, and once had seven downtown train stations: the Great Central Depot (opened in 1856), Wells Street Station (1881), the first Union Station (1881), Dearborn Station (1885), Grand Central Station (1890), Central Station (1893, in time for the World Columbian Exposition), and LaSalle Street Station (1903). Several of these rivaled the grandeur of London’s stations: Grand Central Station was designed by Solon S. Beman, who had designed the Pullman company town, and featured a steel-and-glass-vaulted train shed similar to St. Pancras. Clock towers were major civic amenities among Chicago’s stations: Grand Central had a 247-foot-high clock tower, while Dearborn Station’s tower was 12 stories and Central Station’s was 13 stories. ??????

Chicago’s two grandest stations arrived in the early 20th century. Northwestern Station, built as the downtown terminal for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, was completed in 1911 (replacing the Wells Street Station). It was designed by the firm of Frost and Granger, who, inspired by the Caracalla Baths of ancient Rome, designed an enormous stone vault and large arched windows. Union Station, designed by Daniel Burnham’s firm and completed in 1925 to replace the older Union Station, was even grander, with a large, dramatic Great Hall and an even more dramatic vaulted Concourse Building.

But Chicago, alas, isn’t London. While London has preserved most of its great stations, little is left of Chicago’s railroad glory. Grand Central Station was demolished in 1971 and Central Station in 1974. LaSalle Street Station was demolished in 1981 (the old station can be seen in North by Northwest and The Sting); its replacement was incorporated into the base of a bland office tower. Dearborn Station’s train shed was demolished in 1976, while the terminal building was converted to retail and office space.

That left Chicago with just its two finest stations, but they were doomed as well. Northwestern Station’s terminal building was torn down in 1984, with the commuter train passengers served by a reduced station within a post-modern high-rise. Meanwhile, the grandest of Chicago railroad spaces, the Union Station Concourse, was demolished in 1969. Fortunately, the main terminal building remains and is heavily used by commuter trains (and can be seen in The Untouchables and Silver Streak). This sad story was repeated in most American cities, as Americans relied less on railroads and more on cars (and American tax dollars were spent on highways while the railroads were allowed to decay).

The most outrageous loss of an American railroad terminal was New York’s Pennsylvania Station, which was America’s, and maybe the world’s, most spectacular railroad station, resembling one of London’s great terminals but at an even grander scale. Built in 1910 by the Pennsylvania Railroad, the building was enormous, occupying two city blocks of Manhattan. Designed by the Charles Folson McKim of McKim, Mead, and White, it is said to have featured one of the largest interior spaces in the world. The building was demolished in 1963 and replaced by Madison Square Gardens, two office towers, and a basement train station. The old station can still be glimpsed in movies from the 1930s through the 1950s, for example, in 1955’s Killer’s Kiss.

But we need not entirely despair. A few grand, inspirational railroad terminals survive in American cities, including Grand Central Station in New York, with one of the greatest interior spaces in the US; Union Station in Washington, D.C., also designed by Burnham’s firm; 30th Street Station in Philadelphia; the Cincinnati Union Terminal; and Union Station in Los Angeles, which took its design inspiration from Spanish revival rather than the Romanesque architecture that was characteristic of most US terminals. These railroad stations still greet visitors with grand spaces that say “Welcome” in a big way.

Footnotes:

[1] Paddington Station was designed by famed engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, whose statue is prominently displayed in the station (as is the statue of Paddington the bear).

[2] Marylebone can be seen in A Hard Day’s Night, with the Beatles being chased by fans through the station.

[3] Appropriately, these two stations welcome more international visitors to London than the other stations, with Paddington being connected to Heathrow and St. Pancras to the Channel Tunnel.