Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 14, 2017

Union Station is an Amtrak railroad station and mixed-use commercial building in downtown Erie, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The Lake Shore Limited provides passenger service between Chicago, New York City, and Boston; Erie is the train's only stop in Pennsylvania. The station's ground floor has been redeveloped into commercial spaces with offices in the remainder of the building. 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. Passenger rail service dwindled after World War II when air and highway travel became more popular. The New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad were merged in 1968 to form Penn Central, and passenger rail was transferred from Penn Central to Amtrak in 1971. 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.