Author: Mary Ries

1953 On January 15th a runaway train (with failed brakes) called the Federal Express from Boston pulled by GG-1 No. 4876  crashed through the platform area and into the

1942-1945 The all-out effort for World War II meant the station handled as many as 200,000 people in twenty-four hours. Parade magazine said that the building held

1939 President Franklin Roosevelt welcomed King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Washington in the station’s State Reception Room.

1917-1918 The station became a center of American efforts during World War I, moving deploying soldiers to ships bound for Europe and civilians to the

1910 Picture of the original restaurant from Union Station circa the 1910s. Savarins, as the restaurant was known, billed itself as Washington’s Best Restaurant. It

1907 Union Station opened with the arrival of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s Pittsburgh Express on October 27th. The rail station went into full service

1903 Congress approved the union terminal site on the north side of Massachusetts Avenue, with D.H. Burnham & Co. as the building’s architects. Burnham and

1901 The McMillan Commission determined that further development of the L’Enfant Plan necessitated removing existing railroad facilities from the National Mall.