^I'd be cool with that, but do you think the Rat(ner)s will bite? 

 

 

As an upscale shopping venue, Tower City looks pretty much like a flop. That space sure would make a kick-ass station concourse, though!

^so wind the clock back 20 years?

^so wind the clock back 20 years?

 

More like thirty-plus. The commuter train quit then, and there hadn't been any significant intercity service through there for years prior to that.

As an upscale shopping venue, Tower City looks pretty much like a flop. That space sure would make a kick-ass station concourse, though!

 

Things are kinda funny like that.  It's amazing how many cities have found that the best use for an old train station is...a train station!

As an upscale shopping venue, Tower City looks pretty much like a flop. That space sure would make a kick-ass station concourse, though!

 

Tower City has slipped as a high-end mall, although I wouldn't want to go back to being simply a train station: been there, done that... Besides, Tower City still has a number of high-end retailers and restaurants attached to it, including the 2 upscale hotels.  And look at the rest of downtown, retail-wise.  Let's not punt on TC just yet.

 

Also, why can't TC function as both a mall and a train station for commuters (RTA, CVSR)?  St. Louis' Union Station is a huge mall, hotel and Amtrak terminal.  While we can modify the Stokes tower and the Cuyahoga bridge to allow Amtrak/commuter trains in... why do it?  Ain't worth it.  We should stick with plans to build a main station with air rights/hotel at the end of the Mall at North Coast.  We should also follow through make sure CVSR is extended to Tower City --- it appears plans have CVSR tracks/terminal is reserved for the SE corner of the convention center plan while noozer stated tracks would extend all the way to the west side to the old, defunct B & O terminal.

St. Louis Union Station is not their Amtrak terminal (they have an Amshack like Cleveland).

St. Louis Union Station is not their Amtrak terminal (they have an Amshack like Cleveland).

 

If it isn't in Union Station, it's at least next door, is it not?

I would argue that Tower City has helped to suffocate other retail downtown.  Once inside the enclosed confines of the mall, what motivation does the typical person have to go outside and walk down Euclid Avenue? 

 

If Tower City were to be converted back into a train station, I wouldn't necessarily eliminate the retail component.  The Union Stations in Chicago and DC have a fair share of stores (which pay rent to Amtrak).  The stores have a built-in customer base, between daily commuters and intercity passengers, and the passengers can browse and shop while waiting for their train.  No reason TC couldn't behave similarly (although other downtown retail needs to be allowed to exist along the streets).

I would argue that Tower City has helped to suffocate other retail downtown.  Once inside the enclosed confines of the mall, what motivation does the typical person have to go outside and walk down Euclid Avenue? 

 

If Tower City were to be converted back into a train station, I wouldn't necessarily eliminate the retail component.  The Union Stations in Chicago and DC have a fair share of stores (which pay rent to Amtrak).  The stores have a built-in customer base, between daily commuters and intercity passengers, and the passengers can browse and shop while waiting for their train.  No reason TC couldn't behave similarly (although other downtown retail needs to be allowed to exist along the streets).

 

No doubt.  But keep in mind, downtown retail was very shaky before Tower City opened -- Halles closed a decade earlier, Mays, if I'm not mistaken, closed around the time TC opened -- I don't think it's loss can be blamed on TC, because it was seriously declining throughout the 80s -- I remember my mom used to gripe how shabby May's downtown had become...  Sure, Tower City definitely hurt lower Euclid, but how come other cities -- Montreal, Toronto, Boston, D.C. and others, have major downtown malls -- in some cases, several -- and not suffered the total retail decline downtown Cleveland has.  I think solely pointing at Tower City as the source of all downtown retail evil is a cop out.  As is the case of most failures of dowtown  -- the RTA Waterfont Line among them -- the fault lies with our leaders/developers for not following through aggressively staying ahead of the growth curve.  Much of it has to do w/ the total lack of cooperation we've had development-wise: the death of a subway/dual hub, the Wolstein East Bank legal wrangling, the Davenport Bluffs failure and the Hessler Ct constant NIMBY battles are just a few examples of selfish interest stymieing positive growth and development here.

 

Keep in mind, also, the original Terminal Tower Union Station was conceived as a shopping mall, and there was Higbees and small shops -- but nothing on the scale of Tower City.  Forest City has woefully poorly managed TC, but the potential is there, given it's key location and transit connection, for it to be great -- along w/ viable retail areas along lower Euclid and in the WHD, as well.

I agree--Tower City was merely the proverbial straw.  I believe by the time Tower City opened, the Galleria was already starting to slide.  Most of downtown's decline was definitely due to the loss of population (and density) both in the city and downtown, as suburban sprawl accelerated in the 1980s.

 

Curious to know where these "downtown malls" in Boston and DC are, though!

ballston commons, duh.

^^ Well Boston does has two high end malls in Back Bay (Pru and Copley Place) which, depending on how broadly you define "downtown" should count.  They co-exist just fine with Newbury Street, but both malls rely heavily, according to their operators, on the large volume of tourists and conventioneers staying in the many, many adjacent hotels and visiting the adjacent mini convention center.

 

Back on topic: due to its routing, I've wondered if the Red Line wouldn't work better as the basis for an extended commuter train network rather than a [embarassingly low volume] core transit system.

Back on topic: due to its routing, I've wondered if the Red Line wouldn't work better as the basis for an extended commuter train network rather than a [embarassingly low volume] core transit system.

 

due to its routing, I'm wondering why no one has ever pulled their head out of their asses to redevelop (TOD) the massively vacant sites surrounding most Red Lin Stations. those superfund dollars aren't going to be around for ever!

Ballston Common is in Arlington.  Not quite downtown (only 7 miles off).  Oddly enough, Prudential Center also has a rail station (Back Bay Station) beneath it.  The Prudential "mall" seems to cater to the workers in the building, though.  The streets of that city are so wonderful to walk, I don't know who in their right mind would seek refuge in retail bunker.

 

The Red Line essentially follows railroad rights-of-way.  It could be the basis of a commuter rail system, but I think TOD on all the unnecessary park-and-ride lots would be easier to accomplish (and generate more tax revenue).

Most of downtown's decline was definitely due to the loss of population (and density) both in the city and downtown, as suburban sprawl accelerated in the 1980s.

 

Downtown's population has been growing for 20 years.  The city population has been dropping though if that's what you were trying to get across.

^ Not only that, but the route that the western half of the line follows cuts off most of the larger western suburbs (Lakewood, Westlake, Bay, and River.)  It could work as the main artery of a commuter rail system, but there would have to be extensions.

dan, it was some bad joke about ballston being downtown DC

Oddly enough, Prudential Center also has a rail station (Back Bay Station) beneath it.  The Prudential "mall" seems to cater to the workers in the building, though.  The streets of that city are so wonderful to walk, I don't know who in their right mind would seek refuge in retail bunker.

 

Back Bay station isn't quite underneath the Pru (I think it is across the street), but in any case, it is very well served by public transit and also by the Mass Pike.  The Pru mall is every bit as much of a mall as the Galleria (not sure why you used quotes) and serves a much wider population than the office workers (college kids, yuppies, etc).  It even has a full service grocery store which works very well (and is very profitable).

 

There is also the Cambridgeside Galleria which is right across the river from central Boston.  For whatever reason, central Boston is about as well stocked with malls as northern New Jersey.  In any case, all are transit accessible and there seems to be plenty of consumable income left for the really fancy stores on Newbury Street and the less fancy stuff at Downtown crossing.  This is all irrelvent, of course, because Boston is swimming in resident, day-tripper, foreign tourist and conventioneer spending cash while Cleveland...not so much.

 

^Yep, StrapHanger, and Cambridge Galleria which was pretty new when we last visited in 2002, was both gigantic and semi-upscale (about TC level -- Copley Place was THE upscale mall in Boston) packed w/ people, most of whom, like us, took the Green Line (LRT) to Leechmere terminal... And Copley Place, alone, makes Tower City look like a shoebox, size-wise -- it literally stretches for blocks and blocks with overhead connecting walkways (which we poo-poo here as destructive to our historic architecture -- last I looked, Boston's a tad older and more historic than Cleveland)...

 

As for D.C., Dan, what about the Shoppes at (J.W. Marriott, flagship)?  How about the Old Post Office Pavilion (made famous in that "No Way Out" scene); then there's, semi-cheezy, L'Enfant Plaza shops/mall... Then, nearby, there's Georgetown Mall... Then, just over the river/5-7 min Yellow Line Metro ride away, theres the huge, beautiful Fashion Centre at Pentagon City...Isn't there a mini-mall at 7th St/Chinatown?.. Then, Metro (Red Line) to the edge of town to the NW, there's the highly upscale Mazza Gallery.  Sounds like quite a few malls to me...

^also, there were a bunch of condo towers rising around the Cambridge Galleria in addition to those just finished... I recall, when Tower City was just a nice, glass-encased model sitting in the beautiful Terminal Tower foyer, there were a bunch of condo towers slated behind Tower City toward the river -- but none were built besides the mall, itself.  Blame the stingy/selfish Ratners; blame the leaders; blame whoever ... that's the problem too often with Cleveland... nice plans, but no follow through.

As for D.C., Dan, what about the Shoppes at (J.W. Marriott, flagship)?  How about the Old Post Office Pavilion (made famous in that "No Way Out" scene); then there's, semi-cheezy, L'Enfant Plaza shops/mall... Then, nearby, there's Georgetown Mall... Then, just over the river/5-7 min Yellow Line Metro ride away, theres the huge, beautiful Fashion Centre at Pentagon City...Isn't there a mini-mall at 7th St/Chinatown?.. Then, Metro (Red Line) to the edge of town to the NW, there's the highly upscale Mazza Gallery.  Sounds like quite a few malls to me...

 

Clevelanders, of all people, should know that just because a building has multiple retail outlets, doesn't equate it with a crappy suburban mall.  There used to be something called an "arcade".  Having stores on the ground floor of an office/residential building is more in-line with the arcade concept than the suburban mall ridiculousness. 

 

Drives me nuts when people think "retail = mall".  Yuck!

^ I hear you... Like one city realtor guy told us, once, Clevelanders (sans UO posters) just don't get the 'urban thing'.

^You weren't serious about the "Fashion Centre" being beautiful, were you?  Please tell me you were kidding.  Faux palm trees in Northern Virginia in January--kinda reeks of pretentiousness.

^As does "Centre"(sic).

 

Anyhoo, back to current commuter rail issues (which this thread isn't really about anyway), what is great about the Red Line is that it hits major regional attractions (Airport, Downtown, UC) and the trip between them is really quite speedy.  The down side is that it doesn't really hit a lot of population in between those points.  But for these reasons, I'd think the Airport-UC corridor has excellent long term potential as the backbone of an electric, or even combo electric/diesel express commuter train system that could branch out in a few directions, east and west, and deliver people to a lot more places than just the lakefront.  One seat train ride from Lakewood to UC would be very sweet.  You could even shave off a few minutes if some of the worst performing stations were closed along the way...

 

This is of course would take a lot of money and is no substitute for a true intracity rail transit system (which we don't really have much of at this point)...but it's something to ponder when watching that big rapid viaduct carrying so few people and those silly one car trains.

^You weren't serious about the "Fashion Centre" being beautiful, were you?  Please tell me you were kidding.  Faux palm trees in Northern Virginia in January--kinda reeks of pretentiousness.

 

I'm not a mall guy, generally, but there's something about Fashion Centre that attracts me over the average mall -- maybe it's that it's more vertical than most.  Also, I like the fact that, unlike most malls (and like Tower City), it is rail transit accessible/friendly.  A large number of people arrive/leave via (Metro) rail, a fact that scares most mall developers since they feel the rail would allow more access to blacks and other minorities thus brining down the mall... I despise such a racist mentality (which, btw, kept Metro from Georgetown), but it's real... doesn't seem to be hurting Fashion Centre -- w/ it's high-end retailers -- one iota.

It would seem the 2nd alternative is the cheapest and makes the most sense.  It would also have the least impact on the Red Line, west... And while they're at it, why not raise the CVSR from riverbed level up to RTA/Lorain Commuter track level so CVSR trains could also share the same TC terminal platforms.  This would seem to make more sense than having a separate CVSR terminal wouldn't it?

CVSR would have to go under NS to access CUT via the commuter track level. And that's not just because of the grade difference that needs to be overcome. NS will not permit a scenic railroad to cross a moderately busy freight line at grade. CVSR is having similar problems getting permission from CSX and NS to cross their tracks that come down the Big Creek valley into the Cuyahoga valley. They may have to grade-separate that crossing, or come up with some extra signaling equipment to protect that crossing (as well as added liability insurance).

 

BTW, stub-end terminals are very low capacity. Not much potential for future growth with the last scenario. A four-track through station on the lakefront site would have much more capacity than a four-track stub-end CUT station.

St. Louis Union Station is not their Amtrak terminal (they have an Amshack like Cleveland).

 

If it isn't in Union Station, it's at least next door, is it not?

 

Is it?  I thought it was quite a walk from Union Station...

Here's a 1921 Engineering News-Record article announcing the "Public Square Passenger Terminal Authorized."

 

http://www.clevelandmemory.com/enr/terminal.html

St. Louis Union Station is not their Amtrak terminal (they have an Amshack like Cleveland).

 

They won't have the Amshack for long. St. Louis is building the Gateway Intermodal Terminal for Amtrak, Greyhound and Metrolink light rail. It's elongated because it has to thread under a highway connect the various transport modes...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then again, here is what Houston is planning to build!!

 

 

...the new passenger facilities are imperatively needed by the New York Central Lines because of the growth of population of Cleveland and because the present station is...

After reading the article on Cleveland Memory Project, I guess the question I have to ask all of you is; were the Van Sweringens and the public correct in their vote to have the Union Terminal at Public Square?

What would have happened if it were placed at the northern terminus of the Mall?

Would the city be better off today had it been at the lakefront location?  If it were originally placed on the lakefront, the city would have an entirely different feel and reference point to it.  I think it would have made us deal with lakefront access long ago.

What would Euclid Avenue have been in the 40's, 50's, and 60's if the station wasn't at its west end? 

What would Public Square look like today?  Just an extension of the Warehouse District?  Hotel Cleveland would certainly look odd without the Terminal Tower there.

Riverfront access at collision bend?

Rapid service throughout the city would be totally different, probably utilizing the Lakewood tracks.

The Terminal Tower wouldn't look the same.  Would it be worth it to not have it if we had a currently utilized passenger station on the Lakefront instead of the Amshack?

 

So many questions, and not much of an opportunity for answers.  I guess what I'm saying is that our city would be completly different.  For better or worse.  What do you think?

i think you might have seen a slightly different pattern in development, but in the end no net difference in downtown.

Hello again everyone!  More details to come about my current studio project but it involves a very nice trustee sending 12 of us to the netherlands for a week-airfare and accommodations paid-for some case-study investigation!  CANNOT WAIT!  stroopwafels, yum....

 

Anyways,  I have this wonderful book on train station competitions for a bunch of Italian cities.  Rome Turbina and Termini, Torino Porta Susa, Florence___, and others...The book is in Italian so I really don't know what they're saying but a bunch of compelling 3-D images and models that make us hope that if something is ever built where the Amtrak station is currently located, it will be more dynamic and fresh than the little cartoon in the PD or even St. Louis' and Houston's proposals.  That sketch is really cool though--just imagine a Brown's game or World Cup Match with a packed house and that station jammed pack... :cry: So beautiful!

 

I also have a little story regarding Tower City.

 

A couple of years ago some friends from IIT took a little road trip to the 3 C's to see our P.B. Lewis building, the Wexner in the 'Bus and Zaha's museum in Cincy...I thought we'd take the rapid just for the hell of it.  Needless to say my friends-all native Chicagoans, were really impressed with Tower City. We were on a tight schedule so we rushed through the building but they thought it was an amazing space.  They loved the dynamic that the mix of retail and transportation created. (Hopefully one day we'll have more and better options but that's just preaching to the choir).  I know we can't regard these 'feel good stories' to a high degree because it's important to be critical of what we're doing, but it's an example of something unique to Cleveland and how imperative it is to take complete advantage of what we have in Tower City and the tracks below.   

 

 

After reading the article on Cleveland Memory Project, I guess the question I have to ask all of you is; were the Van Sweringens and the public correct in their vote to have the Union Terminal at Public Square?

What would have happened if it were placed at the northern terminus of the Mall?

Would the city be better off today had it been at the lakefront location?  If it were originally placed on the lakefront, the city would have an entirely different feel and reference point to it.  I think it would have made us deal with lakefront access long ago.

What would Euclid Avenue have been in the 40's, 50's, and 60's if the station wasn't at its west end? 

What would Public Square look like today?  Just an extension of the Warehouse District?  Hotel Cleveland would certainly look odd without the Terminal Tower there.

Riverfront access at collision bend?

Rapid service throughout the city would be totally different, probably utilizing the Lakewood tracks.

The Terminal Tower wouldn't look the same.  Would it be worth it to not have it if we had a currently utilized passenger station on the Lakefront instead of the Amshack?

 

So many questions, and not much of an opportunity for answers.  I guess what I'm saying is that our city would be completely different.  For better or worse.  What do you think?

 

Interesting ideas but, ultimately, I think the train station was built in the right place even though we (short-sightedly imho) chose to abandon the Square to the point where, now, it's really too late to go back as we've given too much train/passenger space away to retail and office development -- for the good, in many levels. 

 

As the 1921 article notes, then as now, the critical problem with the lakefront was the bottleneck caused by freight and passenger trains -- obviously, all the worse during the heyday of passenger trains in the early 20s.  Keep in mind, for a couple miles east & west of the terminal/Tower City, the tracks were exclusively passenger.

 

As for the Vans and the Rapid, it was pretty much an all or nothing deal.  Had Public Sq been defeated, the Shaker line, the main impetus behind all of the Van's Cleveland development, would probably have withered and died along with the other streetcars and interurbans.  The direct, grade-separated Rapid route to Public Sq, however, w/ its thru aspect (unique, as KJP has noted, since the majority of big city stations were stub-track stations, forcing trains to back out after discharging/picking up passengers-- a common aspect of many/most European stations, today), allowed, not only the Shaker Rapid to have staying power despite the decline of all other forms of electric passenger rail in Cleveland, it also allowed the Vans to plan an partially build what is the today's Red Line.

 

Also the Terminal's Union Station was unique for a number of reasons:

 

- it was a rare station in the center of the business district, whereas most big city stations were at the periphery or even outside their downtowns

 

- it was one of the few, outside NY, Chicago and Philly, the brought trains in underground and which is why electric engines were needed to shuttle passenger trains through

 

- it was one of the 1st and only to extensively develop high-density air-rights office and retail directly over the tracks thus making the actual station itself invisible from street level aside from the massive, beautiful portico on Public Square.

I don't think I could add much to clvlndr's message. When we second-guess (or simply measure) decisions that are made in the past, send yourself back to that era in a "mental time machine" and try to place yourself in the shoes of a Clevelander back then. Remember that there was a strong desire to have a Public Square befitting a city that was the nation's fifth or sixth largest city and was adding 100,000 to 200,000 every decade for the prior 40 years. Public Square (especially the SW quadrant) was a disgrace and the Cleveland Union Terminal was an opportunity to replace many blocks of eyesore buildings and provide a single location that united the five scattered railroad stations downtown serving the New York Central, Big Four, Pennsylvania RR, Nickel Plate, Erie, B&O, Wheeling & Lake Erie. And it was intended to provide a station for the existing interurban electric lines (Lake Shore Electric to Lorain and Toledo; the Cleveland Southwestern to Elyria, Norwalk, Berea, Medina and Bucyrus; the Northern Ohio to Akron, Canton, Kent, Ravenna, Warren, and New Philadelphia; the Cleveland & Eastern to Mayfield, Chagrin Falls, Chardon and Middlefield; and the Cleveland, Painesville & Eastern to Willoughby, Painesville, Geneva and Ashtabula), plus the planned system of an urban rapid transit (including the recently built Shaker rapid -- then considered the first phase of a high-speed electric railway to Youngstown). You couldn't do all that on the lakefront.

 

cle2032, interesting story. We have our beefs with Joe Calabrese's views on rail here, but even Joe told me once that he considered Tower City as one of the finest rail transit stations in the U.S. I certainly agree. Too bad not much else has been developed along the rapid transit lines to create new nodes of high-density activity and thus build rail traffic synergies between them. That, I believe more than anything, is why Tower City isn't all that it could be. It's a virtual oasis on the Cleveland rail transit system. Shaker Square is a close second. Ironically, these are both brainchilds of the Van Swerigen brothers.

 

We've largely forgotten how to build urban assets in Cleveland since those two guys died. Take a page, RTA and others!

The direct, grade-separated Rapid route to Public Sq, however, w/ its thru aspect (unique, as KJP has noted, since the majority of big city stations were stub-track stations, forcing trains to back out after discharging/picking up passengers-- a common aspect of many/most European stations, today), allowed, not only the Shaker Rapid to have staying power despite the decline of all other forms of electric passenger rail in Cleveland, it also allowed the Vans to plan an partially build what is the today's Red Line.

 

Is this really true?  Perhaps there were more in the past, when there was more rail service nationally, but the only stations that I can think of that are stub-ends are Chicago Union Station (stub ends to both the north and the south), and Boston North and South Stations.  Even Washington Union Station, which has mostly stub-tracks since it is the end of the electrified NEC, has several through-tracks for service to Virginia and points south.

 

Just curious to know how valid this is.

 

 

Dan, you raise a good rebuttal... off the top of my head, I can think of Detroit's old Michigan Central and, I believe, St. Louis' old Union Station.  In Canada, I believe Montreal and Toronto has them, although, Montreal does have, I believe, Central which, like Terminal Tower, with an electrified ROW underground into its station and thru downtown -- the electric Deux Mountain (sp) commuter line still uses this route, as I understand.

 

Maybe I'm a little shaky on the stub-end aspect, but you have to agree, its very rare in having main railroad stations, like Terminal Tower, so close to, or at, the middle of the CBD (obviously influenced by the Van's original, driving motivation to place their Shaker Rapid terminal near offices and jobs).  I suspect this is because, before diesels -- and electric ts on the East Coast, these stations were planned and built during the steam era, with engines belching building-fouling smoke and soot and wide, eyesore RR yards.

I agree it is definitely rare to have a rail station in the CBD.  I'm thinking back to Burnham's Mall Plan for DC, when Union Station was located to the east end of the Mall and north of the Capitol.  Previously, the B&O Station was directly on the Mall, I believe pretty close to the current location of the Museum of American History.  Even when Penn Station was built in New York, it was pretty well outside the CBD, and Baltimore's Penn Station is about 1.5 miles uptown, although Camden Station is in the CBD.

 

I did forget that the other Chicago rail stations were stub-ends:  North Western Station (now Ogilvie), La Salle Street, and Millenium Station.  This is likely due to Chicago's historical significance as a rail transfer hub from eastern ports and manufacturing centers to points west. 

East Coast:

 

Boston North and south stations: stub

New York City Grand Central: Stub w/loop, Pennsylvania Station: Thru

Baltimore: PRR Thru, B&O Mt. Royal, thru, B&O Camden: Stub/w some thru tracks

Washington: Stub/w some thru tracks

Richmond: Main St. Thru, Broad St. An oddball...thru, but on a loop track off the main

 

Buffalo NYC: Thru, LV, Erie, DL&W Stub

Cleveland: CUT:Thru, others stub

Cincinnati CUT: Thru

Indianapolis Union Station: Thru

St. Louis Union Station: 42 stub tracks, world's largest single level station

Kansas City Union Station: Thru

 

As you can see it's a mix. Railroads did what they felt suited each location best. The gateway cities of Chicago and St. Louis were all stub stations as no trains operated thru these cities, with few exceptions.

^Baltimore Camden Station has since been converted into a strictly stub-end station.

I forgot about Chicago's other stations -- all stubs... Ironically, I was thinking of only station named "Union Station", where Amtrak goes today.  Historically speaking, though, it was anything but.

True. I was talking about the situation in the golden years of rail passenger service, before 1955. The B&O ended service north of Camden (the Royal Blue service to Jersey City) in 1958.

Dan, you raise a good rebuttal... off the top of my head, I can think of Detroit's old Michigan Central and, I believe, St. Louis' old Union Station.  In Canada, I believe Montreal and Toronto has them, although, Montreal does have, I believe, Central which, like Terminal Tower, with an electrified ROW underground into its station and thru downtown -- the electric Deux Mountain (sp) commuter line still uses this route, as I understand.

 

Detroit's Michigan Central is a through station. Just east of the station, the old Michigan Central Railroad descended into a tunnel under the Detroit River to Windsor. Due to the tunnel, Detroit, like Cleveland, also had electrically powered trains from Michigan Central station east to Windsor but used third rail, not overhead wires like Cleveland did.

 

Detroit's Fort Street (Union) Station was a stub-end station, for Pennsylvania RR, Wabash, Pere Marquette, B&O and C&O. The other stub-end station in Detroit was the Brush Street Station for Grand Trunk Western and later for SEMTA commuter trains to Pontiac.

 

Toronto Union Station also is a through station.

 

San Francisco's Townsend Street Station for Southern Pacific was/is a stub-end station.

 

Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal is another stub-end station, but perhaps not for much longer!

 

Pittsburgh had a couple of stub-end stations -- B&O's Grant Street station (used until 1989 when the PaT commuter trains stopped). And the Wabash station just across the river from the P&LE Station (a through station also used by B&O's through trains) now Station Square.

 

Philadelphia had two stub-end stations -- Broad Street Station and Reading Terminal. 30th Street station was and is a through station.

There were three additional stations in Chicago that served intercity trains until Amtrak consolidated everything at Union Station:

 

Dearborn Station, the only building still standing, served Erie, Monon, New York Central, Santa Fe and maybe others. It was a stub-end station. I have just a few small-child mental images of arriving there from Decatur, Indiana via the Erie with Dad when I was about five years old. It was winter, and I remember the clouds of vapor swirling around the steam locomotive as we walked by it.

 

Grand Central Station served B&O and others, and was a stub-end station with a vast train shed. I think it was on the southwest side of the loop. I don't remember ever being there.

 

Central Station served Illinois Central and a few others and stood near the lakefront. My only visit there was to tug on the locked door and read the sign taped to the inside of the glass that said Amtrak had moved all service to Union Station. IC moved all its offices out and razed it shortly thereafter. I think it was stub-end; although tracks ran beside or under it, I think they all ended a short distance to the north at Randolph Street (Now Millennium Station) or in freight yards.

Central Station was stub end. The station trackage and platforms are at the same location as the Millenium Station with Metra electric suburban service to University Park and South Shore service to South Bend. Ever been there, Rob?  :wink:

I forgot about L.A., too... quite a busy place these days with Amtrak (particularly the busy/frequent San Diego service), Metro-Link commuter rail, MTA's heavy rail Red Line and LRT Gold Line.

Central Station was stub end. The station trackage and platforms are at the same location as the Millenium Station with Metra electric suburban service to University Park and South Shore service to South Bend. Ever been there, Rob?  :wink:

 

Once or twice, I think, maybe  :-D

 

http://robertpence.com/south_shore.html

 

I had the impression it was farther south along the IC, maybe in the vicinity of Van Buren, but I didn't have any solid basis for that assumption. I may be older than dirt, but I came rather late to a fascination with trains & railroads. Even that was before a lot of forumers were born, though I guess. :|

Too bad the Tower City site will be favored for a convention center and medical mart as long as Jackson is mayor and Forest City Enterprises keeps bankrolling his campaigns.

That doesn't preclude planning for an appropriate rail station on the lakefront.

I have been trying to envisiage an intermodal Convention-Center/Ohio-Hub/Euclid-Corridor-Transit system.  Nothing works.  The Convo Center would either be near the current Amtrak stop and skip ECT, or it would be at Tower City and not near Amtrak. 

 

In my (admittedly) gloomy vision, there will be a time when the world has 40% of the petroleum to get by with, Americans will be priced out of cars, and travelers will want to use a train to get to Cleveland's hospitals or to a business meeting place (which would logically be the Convention Center in Cleveland).  A local transit system starting at the train station would be ultimate.