Omaha railroad stations

[jecorbett]

This thread is a continuation of a dialogue that started on the layouts board regarding Walther's Union Station kit and the prototype it is based on. This latest information comes from the book Union Pacific and Omaha Union Station by Carla Johnson, which I recently acquired.

First of all, the kit is based on Omaha's Burlington Station, not Omaha Union Station. The documentation in the Walther's kit says so and a picture of Burlington Station following the 1929 rennovation makes clearly shows this to be the case. Omaha Union Station is similar in configuration to Burlington Station but has an Art Deco exterior and lacks the massive columns on the trackside of the station.

Contrary to what I had guessed about a week ago, Burlington Station never consolidated operations with Union Station and was never know as Union Station. Both stations remained in operation until Amtrak took over long distance passenger travel in 1971. Union Station closed and Amtrak operated out of Burlington. The old station was closed in 1974 and Amtrak operated out of a doublewide building placed on the east end of the Burlington platform. A permanent Amtrak station was built on the site about 10 years later. The primary cause of my confusion came from the book The Burlington Route which incorrectly identifies Burlington Station as Omaha Union. That combined with Walther's naming their kit Union Station even though it is based on Burlington Station led me to believe that maybe Union Station had moved its operations into Burlington Station.

Even though they remained separate entities until the end, there was great cooperation between the two stations for the convenience of their passengers. The 1929 rennovation to Burlington Station was done in conjunction with the building of the last Omaha Union Station which replaced the station built in 1899. There was discussion regarding Burlington becoming a tenant of the new Union Station and closing their station but that was rejected due to differences in the grade of the CB&Q and UP lines west of the station complex. Instead, an effort was made to make both stations architecturally homogenous. An earlier drawing of the new Union Station showed a peaked roof like the Burlington had but instead the Burlington was remodeled with a flat roof. An over-the-track concourse was built connecting the two stations. At planning time, the Chicago and Great Western threatened legal action to block construction of the new Union Station because they claimed forcing them to share the expense of the new station violated terms of a federal court order they obtained in 1908 forcing Union Station to take them in as a tenant. An out of court settlement was reached in which the C&GW would instead become a tenant of the rennovated Burlington Station.

A few other tidbits from the book:
1. After the building of the Missouri River Bridge which replaced a ferry operation, a legal fight broke out with Omaha and the Union Pacific on one side, and Council Bluffs, Iowa and three Chicago based roads on the other over the interchange point between the roads. For a while, all the involved railroads refused to take interchange traffic across the bridge so a temporary railroad company was set up to run interchange traffic across the bridge. The dispute was resolved by the US Supreme Court who order the UP to move the eastern terminus freight yard to the Council Bluffs side where Abraham Lincoln had originally decreed it should be.

2. In addition to the two permanant Union Stations built in 1899 and 1929, there were 6 temporary Union Stations, some of which were used while the new stations were constructed. Originally, the CB&Q was going to be a tenant of first permanent Union Station, but when the UP and several other major roads went bankrupt during the depression of 1893, after construction had begun, the CB&Q was forced to go ahead with their own station on the south side of the tracks. Ironically, construction of the 1929 Union Station was begun just months before the stock market cra***hat triggered the Great Depression.

3. By the 1920s, the automobile had already begun cutting into passenger traffic. Union Station ticket sales peaked in 1920 at over 754,000 but that had been cut by more than half by 1926 when Omaha businessman began lobbying the UP to build a new Union Station despite the dwindling traffic. It is my guess that most of the lost business was on the short branchline and commuter traffic.

[Jetrock]

It's always sad to see the Omaha station by the trackside empty and boarded up, with passengers coming to and from the dinky little Amshack by the trackside. The starting point of the Union Pacific's end of the Transcontinental Railroad should have a better fate...I know there is a museum across the street (never visited, only jumped out on the tracks on the Amtrak California Zephyr in the dead of night) but in Sacramento we have a museum AND a functioning and beautiful passenger station instead of an Amshack.

[jecorbett]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Jetrock

It's always sad to see the Omaha station by the trackside empty and boarded up, with passengers coming to and from the dinky little Amshack by the trackside. The starting point of the Union Pacific's end of the Transcontinental Railroad should have a better fate...I know there is a museum across the street (never visited, only jumped out on the tracks on the Amtrak California Zephyr in the dead of night) but in Sacramento we have a museum AND a functioning and beautiful passenger station instead of an Amshack.

Actually, there is good news on that front. The Union Station houses the Durham Western Heritage Museum and it received an extensive rennovation in 1996, restoring much of its original grandeur. Burlington Station, neglected since Amtrak abandoned it in 1974, is now being rennovated with a luxury conominium complex. See http://www.burlingtonstation.com/

I know the feeling you talking about. My family moved away from Omaha in 1966 but in 1978, I took an Amtrak trip though Omaha. Amtrak was operating out of a double wide trailer and the Burlington Station I knew from my youth was a relic in obvious state of neglect. The covered escalators to the overhead concourse had been removed leaving an ugly open doorway. It looked like it was one step from the wrecking ball. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed and the station was left alone until recently. Hopefully the new owners will treat it as well as the DWHM has to Union Station. It's a shame more cities didn't act to preserve the great stations even after the decline of passenger rail service. Omaha is very lucky.

[Jetrock]

One of these days I'm going to have to stop in Omaha on my way to Chicago to check out the museum, and Omaha in general. I took a few photos of the Burlington station from trackside, but it was foggy and 4 AM so not much can be seen.

Glad to hear that the building is being preserved, even if in a repurposed form. The Sacramento SP station may undergo some dramatic changes--UP wants to shift the track about a block north, and there is a plan to physically roll the station a block north (it has to have rollers installed for earthquake safety anyhow) to the new trackside site.