[This feature was published in the September 2005 issue of the Bull Sheet]
Union Stations Across the U.S.
By Beryl Frank
Montgomery, Alabama
The year was 1896. The place was Montgomery, Alabama. The construction contracts were given for laying tracks from Columbus to Montgomery. The new station was to be the Union Station that connected the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad with points south.
A short two years later, the last spike ceremony took place on May 12, 1898, at Tuscaloosa. The Union Station in Montgomery was ready to be host to three or more railroad lines.
The new station was styled in the Romanesque manner which was popular in the late 1800's. The covered entrance had the words UNION STATION on three sides of a metal roof. This entrance can be seen as it stood in 1909 and as it stands today. One source says that this was the focal point of transportation into Montgomery until travel by air came into being as the airplane took precedence over the train.
Employees often referred to the Montgomery Station line as the 'Pea Vine.' They claimed that the track profile resembled the growth of a pea vine over the ground. This was because there were so many hills and curves on the tracks. Such hills had names like Trio Hill, Sand Mountain Hill and Fletcher Hill, to name just three of them.
Even though Tuscaloosa had the railroad offices, train dispatchers and crews based there, when the train station came to Montgomery, the Union Station became the anchor of that city. Large passenger trains came here as well as ample freight going to and from the city. (Freight trains began and ended two blocks from Union Station and was another building in the same style as the station.)
By the year 2000, the United States Department of Transportation provided the city of Montgomery with over $5-million to improve this grand old Union Station. At its dedication on December 1, 2000, Rodney E. Slater, then U.S. Secretary of Transportation, spoke. To sum up briefly, he said:
"Union Station is the anchor of this city's living history and the cornerstone of Montgomery's bright future."
Since this picture was taken long before the era of air conditioning, if you look closely, you can see the awnings which shaded the interior from the sun. Ladies who traveled wore long dresses, and the gentlemen always wore suit coats.
Union Station in Montgomery as the building looks today. Still Romanesque in feeling, but now it is privately owned and still very much in use.
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