Union Station is an Amtrak railroad station and mixed-use commercial building in downtown Erie, Pennsylvania, United States. It is served by the Lake Shore Limited route, which provides daily passenger service between Chicago and (via two sections east of Albany) New York City or Boston; Erie is the train's only stop in Pennsylvania. The station's ground floor has been redeveloped into commercial spaces, including The Brewerie at Union Station, a brewpub. The building itself is privately owned by the global logistics and freight management company Logistics Plus and serves as its headquarters.
The first railroad station in Erie was established in 1851 but was replaced with the Romanesque Revival-style Union Depot in 1866. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions by competing railroad companies which started not long after the establishment of Erie's first railroads, Union Depot became jointly owned and operated by the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads. To meet the changing needs of the rapidly growing city, planners designed a more modern structure to replace the original depot. The new Art Deco Union Station, dedicated on December 3, 1927, was the first railroad station of that style in the United States.
While Union Station was busy from its opening and through World War II, passenger rail service began to dwindle after the war when air and highway travel became more popular. By the 1960s, the New York Central drastically cut service, while the Pennsylvania abandoned service to Erie altogether. Both railroads were merged in 1968 to form Penn Central, and passenger rail was transferred from Penn Central to Amtrak in 1971. At one point, from 1972 to 1975, even Amtrak service in Erie was suspended. With reduced demand for train travel, Union Station was neglected and allowed to decay until Logistics Plus bought it in 2003. Since then it has been restored, with portions re-purposed as commercial and retail space.
Design Union Station is in downtown Erie on West 14th Street between Peach and Sassafras Streets. Designed by architects Alfred T. Fellheimer and Steward Wagner, it was the first Art Deco railroad station to be designed and built in the United States. Previously, Fellheimer had been influential in the design of Grand Central Terminal in New York City, and both architects collaborated on several railroad stations for the New York Central Railroad, including Buffalo Central Terminal in 1929 and Cincinnati Union Terminal in 1933.
The main building of Erie's Union Station, three stories tall, is of steel and masonry construction. The entire exterior is clad in "rough brown" brick and sandstone layered in a Flemish bond, trimmed in terracotta, and lined with granite at the ground level. The main station building has a frontage of along Peach Street and on 14th Street; a narrow two-story extension continues another towards Sassafras before terminating at a small, attached office building. The extension eased the transfer of mail, baggage, and freight between trains and street level while the offices of the freight company were housed in the attached building at the Sassafras Street end of the station complex.
When the station initially opened, entrances from 14th Street opened into a large, octagonal rotunda where ticket offices, checked baggage, and a newsstand were located. As the railroad tracks are grade separated behind Union Station, the platforms are accessed by a pedestrian tunnel under the tracks with stairs that lead to the platforms. The tunnel entrance is directly across the rotunda from the street entrance—a portion of which is now used as the kitchen for a brewpub housed inside the station. The concourse, off the rotunda, led to the Peach Street entrances, and contained space for a soda fountain, a barber shop, and telegraph offices, as well as access to the station's waiting room. Facing Peach Street, a dining room and lunch counter run by the Union News Company, which operated the majority of the dining services in New York Central stations, were at the opposite end of Union Station from the rotunda. The entire ground floor was laid with terrazzo featuring a mosaic border and Botticino marble paneling along the plaster walls. A green and tan color scheme was originally used throughout the entire building. Superintendents for both the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads, as well as other railroad officials, had offices on the second floor of Union Station.
The station's low-level, concrete platforms are approximately long covered by steel, "butterfly-style" canopies with wooden roof decking. New York Central made use of four tracks situated on two island platforms; the Pennsylvania Railroad used two tracks on a single island platform. A network of tunnels beneath the station facilitated the transfer of mail to and from the former Griswold Plaza Post Office nearby. A bomb shelter, still stocked with cases of "U.S. Civil Defense All-Purpose Survival Crackers" from the early 1960s, is next to the station's boiler room and its three coal-fed furnaces.
History During the 1840s and 1850s, a flurry of railroad-building activity led to the completion of four separate railroads converging in Erie. A break of gauge between the first two railroads—the Erie and North East Railroad and the Franklin Canal Company—ensured that the citizens of Erie profited from the delays necessary to transfer cargo between the lines. When it was proposed in 1853 to standardize the track gauge to allow through traffic, a conflict that became known as the Erie Gauge War ensued. The residents of Erie, who saw it as an affront to their desire that the city become a major lake port, dismantled railroad bridges and tore up railroad tracks in the city in an effort to prevent the impending standardization. As part of the dispute's settlement, both railroads provided financial support for the construction of the Erie and Pittsburgh and Sunbury and Erie railroads. The Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad acquired the Franklin Canal Company in 1854, and the Erie and North East was merged with the Buffalo and State Line to form the Buffalo and Erie Railroad a few years later. The Sunbury and Erie was renamed the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad in 1861. The Pennsylvania Railroad soon acquired the Sunbury and Erie through a 999-year lease and funded completion of the line by 1864.
Predecessor stations The first railroad station in Erie was built in 1851 and consisted of a "clumsy looking" or "rude brick structure". President-elect Abraham Lincoln addressed a crowd outside of this station on February 16, 1861, while traveling to Washington, D.C. for his inauguration. Construction on a new station was started in early 1865 as a joint venture between the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula and the Buffalo and Erie railroads, and was completed in February 1866. Both the Erie and Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia and Erie railroads also leased portions of the new station for their services. In addition to the leased space, the Philadelphia and Erie continued to maintain a freight station on State Street below Hamot Hospital for several years afterward.
The station, known as Union Depot, consisted of a brick Romanesque Revival structure facing Peach Street between two sets of railroad tracks. It stood tall, topped with a distinctive cupola, and its platforms extended towards Sassafras Street along both sides of the depot. The depot was equipped with the modern amenities of the day including outdoor gas lighting, a barber shop, gentleman's and ladies' parlors, and a dining room; the second floor contained offices and sleeping quarters for railroad officials.
The Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula became the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway in 1869, and absorbed the Buffalo and Erie Railroad later that year. The Pennsylvania Railroad leased the Erie and Pittsburgh for 999 years in 1870. On March 5, 1902, nearly 10,000 people turned out at Union Depot to greet Prince Henry of Prussia during his tour of the United States; the prince remained in Erie for approximately 10 minutes before his train continued to Buffalo and Niagara Falls, New York. On December 22, 1914, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad was merged with the New York Central.
Construction In 1913, the city of Erie appointed a committee of city planners and civil engineers led by John Nolen that was tasked with determining the best course of action to support the continued growth of the city. In its final report, the committee recommended, among other civic improvements, that "for the improvement of the railroad facilities in Erie" a new Union Station be constructed, as well as the "abolition of all [railroad] crossings". At the time, the only streets in Erie where the railroad was grade separated were State, French, and Ash Streets, and Buffalo Road, while the remainder had level crossings. The committee felt it was desirable that, on account of Erie's topography and the existing railroad grades, the tracks be raised in the downtown to accommodate new roadway underpasses. The city signed an agreement on September 30, 1915, with the New York Central and the Pennsylvania railroads to eliminate every level crossing between Ash and Cascade Streets through the construction of bridges or the closing of the streets. As compensation, both railroads pledged to replace Union Depot with a new station.
The work to re-grade and install drainage on Peach and Sassafras Streets coincided with the building of the station from 1925 to 1927, and cost the city approximately $110,000 (equivalent to $ in ). A temporary station was also erected at 14th and French Streets, and was used after the old Union Depot was demolished in 1925 until the completion of the new station. Union Station was dedicated on December 3, 1927, in a ceremony presided over by the presidents of the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads, the mayor of Erie Joseph Williams, and former mayor William Stern who helped initiate the project. The Griswold Plaza Post Office, on the north side of 14th Street, opened in 1932 along with the tunnel connecting it to Union Station.
Operations When service from Union Station was inaugurated in 1928, both eastbound and westbound trains were departing the station almost every hour bound for destinations across the United States. Passengers in the station's expansive waiting room could patronize its news stand, telegraph office, barber shop, shoeshine stand, or its lunch counter and soda fountain. Train schedules were handwritten on a large blackboard, while station staff announced the arrival and impending departures of the trains by megaphone.
In the 1930s, the New York Central provided the majority of the service in Erie with over 20 trains daily, including the original Lake Shore Limited and the New England States. The famed 20th Century Limited, however, passed through Union Station nightly without stopping. Union Station was on the New York Central's main line, often referred to as the "Water Level Route", with trains that traveled west to Cleveland, Toledo and Chicago, and east to Buffalo, New York City, and Boston. The New York Central also had the Pittsburgh-Buffalo Express and other service from Erie, to Ashtabula, then via a branch line to Youngstown, Ohio, along the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. The NYC's Southwestern Limited went southwest to St. Louis. The company's Ohio State Limited went southwest to Cincinnati.
Conversely, the Pennsylvania Railroad ran only a few trains from Erie—mainly the Northern and Southern Expresses to Wiliamsport, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., as well as a daily train to Pittsburgh.