Kansas City Union Station

[Superliner Diner]

The following passage was posted on a discussion list/Yahoo! group regarding the return of Kansas City's Union Station to the use that the building was intended for, a real live train station. The Southwest Chief, for the past few decades, has been using a "temporary" facility underneath Main Street while Union Station was closed, and more recently, while it was open but not ready to serve Amtrak.

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Some additional information on the new Kansas City Amtrak Depot...

The new Amtrak platform (which supposedly cost over $5 million) that will return service to Kansas City's magnificent Union Station is forecasted to open up December 10th. Amtrak officials as well as Union Station employees are almost positive Amtrak passenger service will be moved from Amtrak's current location under the Main Street Viaduct to nearby Union Station by that date.

The official dedication ceremony for the media is December 17th. Union Station and Amtrak officials hope that the seven day difference between the move-in and the ceremony will be adequate to iron-out any technical difficulties or problems associated with the move.

I encourage all to stop by and see the new depot and renovated station on your next trip to Union Station.

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One reason Kansas City is bringing rail service back to Union Station

is so that it can possibly host future commuter rail lines.

 

[Viewliner]

Its nice to hear, hopefully its a sign of things to come with other cities. Kind of reminds me of what happened with the Richmond Plans, and Cincinnati Union Terminal.

 

[Superliner Diner]

Amtrak running again through KC's Union StationKANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Seventeen years after the last passenger train pulled out of Union Station, rail service returned Tuesday to the historic downtown landmark.

Full story can be found here. Please be patient when following this link -- since the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website has the entire War and Peace for its URL's I had to use the Makeashorterlink program to provide the link here.

 

[Viewliner]

Nice to hear, hope its a sign of things to come.

 

[Superliner Diner]

Amtrak returns to Union StationSeventeen years ago, Pete and Carolyn McMasters trudged through a crumbling Union Station on the verge of tears.

The whole article is here. The McMasters couple in the article are officers of the MOKSRAIL (Missouri-Kansas Rail Coalition) organization, a subsidiary of NARP.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Glad to hear KC Union Station back the way it should be. I have onl been in that station once(though traveled through it several times). That was 10-15 years ago, I guess. Incredibly, there was some sort of tent...I think we were confined to that tented area to save on heating and cooling.....real monstrosity. KC used to host a lot of trains, mostly westbound or eastbound, and especially heavy on Santa Fe traffic (fore runners of today's Southwest Chief) but there was even a train to Florida, called the "Kansas City-FLorida Spcial".