Saint Louis Union Station is a stop on the MetroLink and a favorite stop for lunch and dinner of many sports fans coming into the downtown area to attend games. All three stadiums are located in downtown Saint Louis. Busch Stadium (Cardinals baseball), Edwards Jones Arena (Rams football) and Scott Trade Center (home of the Saint Louis Blues)and located off the MetroLink.
I had a bit of trouble photographing inside the Train Shed. The bright sky, the shadows, the glass, the water, the massive beams, all seemed to contribute to my problems with clarity. Including the koi! The water was merky or I would have shared a shot of the many koi. Here's a few of my better captures:
In August 1985, after a $150 million renovation, Union Station was reopened with a 539-room hotel, shopping mall, restaurants and food court. The hotel is housed in the headhouse and part of the train shed, which also houses a lake and shopping, entertainment and dining establishments. Omni was the original hotel operator, followed by Hyatt Regency Hotel chain and now Marriott Hotels as of December 2008.
The Midway, once serviced more than 100,000 rail passengers a day. The 610-foot-long and 70-foot-wide concourse was connected to the massive Train Shed, where passengers lined up to board trains through one of 32 boarding gates. The Midway was constructed with a light steel trussed roof of glass and iron. Today it serves as a passageway filled with an array of shops and restaurants.
The Train Shed, 11.5 acres of sweeping arches, was the largest single-span train shed ever constructed. It once covered the greatest number of train tracks (32) than any other station in the nation. Measuring 606 feet wide by 810 feet long, the Victorian-engineered shed soars to 140 feet with its massive space divided by five structural bays. The Shed currently houses retail and restaurant facilities, a portion of the Marriott Hotel, the lake, event and parking areas.
Please do stop by and take a peek at other participants My World submissions this week by clicking My World . I so like seeing what everyone else is up to around the world. Enjoy.
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36 comments:
That is quite a train station! Great post and terrific photos! Looks like it has a little of everything!
Have a great weekend!
Sylvia
Great post!
I agree with Sylvia that is quite a train station!
Have a nice week :)
Anna
Erin, these photos are fabulous! I enlarged them and they are stunning and impressive! Thanks for sharing and don't be too modest, for the shots are great!
Jack's Missouri relatives have taken us to this area of St. Louis. Nice shots. I love these historic train stations in the U.S.
Great series on the train station. It is so much more than just a train station.
I've visited the St. Louis Union Station several times and always enjoyed it. Fun place and these shots remind me of what a wonderful time we had in St. Louis. Thanks for the great shots.
What an interesting place to visit
Hi Erin,
These photos really capture the vastness of the station. I think my favorite is the fountain. Your header is continually changing - I always think I'm in the wrong place!
More like a tourist destination than a train station.
www.ewok1993.wordpress.com
Love these photos, alot!
All the best
Guy
Regina In Pictures
What an amazing place, Erin. So great that it was repurposed and can still be appreciated for the feat of engineering and the beautiful structure that it is, whilst still having a genuine purpose in today's world.
Janice.
It looks hyperreal and modern, like it's from a sci fi book.
That's excellent.
Sydney - City and Suburbs
Beautiful building and shots.
Luiz Ramos
I love traveling by train, and wish it was thriving more as a mode of transportation. Regardless, it is nice to see the older buildings preserved and brought back to life.
I like the photos - the lighting gives an unusual mood to the scene.
Wow, I've never seen a train station like that before. That was a nice tour of it.
Wow, the pictures are superb. And that's one huge train shed! I love your new header too!
Enjoy your week!
What a huge somplex!
Your photos show off the train station well.
What a magnificent train station. No wonder its so popular. Your photos are spectacular.
Erin: That is certainly a beautiful structure and looks like a great place to visit.
Fountains in a train station. Amazing. Love the first one with all the different tints of blue.
Wow .. that's an amazing renovation... puts Grand Central to shame .. its only got restaurants and shops, no hotels or koi ponds
Hi Erin, Your train station looks so clean and modernized. I like the dreamy effects applied to it! :)
I am impressed with that train station; it is just stunning. Your photos are fantastic especially when they are enlarged.
Impressive place and You seem to overcome those difficult photo conditions perfectly!
That's a grand station - it's great when they renovate, instead of tearing it down. And we do need more train travel. Lovely photos.
The train station looked so beautiful and the blue panels are so attractive. It does not look like a train station, more like a shopping mall. :)
Love the dreamy look of the photos
It is good to reuse a building. What has happened to all the 100,000 rail passengers? They all bought cars and clog up the roads?
Thanks for visiting.
Those were excellent photos and I don´t think that you had that much problems to show it! A larger outside photo could have been okay too, to better understand what kind of building it is? Or was it so big that it was hard to fit it in to one photo?:-)
Wow!!!what a train station with all the five star hotel,very impressive:)
Thanks for sharing yr great world.
Very interesting post and you did a good job of capturing the feel of that unique space.
Interesting post and great captured!
St. Louis Union Station, a National Historic Landmark, is a former passenger train terminal in St. Louis, Missouri. Once the world's largest and busiest train station, it was converted in the early 1980s into a luxury hotel, shopping center, and entertainment complex. Today, it is one of the city's major tourist attractions.
The station opened on September 1, 1894, and was owned by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. Designed by Theodore Link, it included three main areas: the Headhouse, the Midway and the 11.5-acre (47,000 m2) Train Shed.
St. Louis Union Station, a National Historic Landmark, is a former passenger train terminal in St. Louis, Missouri. Once the world's largest and busiest train station, it was converted in the early 1980s into a luxury hotel, shopping center, and entertainment complex. Today, it is one of the city's major tourist attractions located on Market Street.
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