Union Station serves as a major intermodaltransportation hub for Portland and Oregon. Union Station connects to TriMetMAXGreen and Yellow Line trains at the nearby Union Station/Northwest 6th & Hoyt Street and Union Station/Northwest 5th & Glisan Street stations, as well as local bus service provided by TriMet. Located at the northern end of TriMet's transit mall, Union Station is also only a short walk to both lines of the Portland Streetcar, in the Pearl District. The station is one of two western termini for the Empire Builder, Amtrak's major long-distance train to the Pacific Northwest. The train splits at Spokane, with one section continuing to Portland by way of the Columbia River Gorge and the other continuing to Seattle. It is also a stop for the Seattle-Los Angeles Coast Starlight, Amtrak's long-distance West Coast train. It serves as the southern terminus for two daily Cascades trains from Vancouver, British Columbia and four daily Cascades trains from Seattle, and the northern terminus for two Cascades trains from Eugene. As of 2018, Union Station is the fifth-busiest Amtrak station in the Western United States and the 21st busiest overall.
Bus connections
Portland's former Greyhound bus terminal is the next building to the south, having moved to the building in 1985. Greyhound vacated the facility in September 2019 in favor of a curbside pickup location nearby.
Station details
Union station is situated near the western bank of the Willamette River in downtown Portland's Old Town Chinatown. The site is bound by Northwest Glisan, Hoyt, and Irving streets to the south; Northwest Broadway Street and Station Way to the west; Northwest Overton Street and Naito Parkway to the north; and Northwest Ironside Terrace and industrial and commercial zones to the east.
History
The initial design for the station was created in 1882 by McKim, Mead, and White. Had the original plan been built, the station would have been the largest train station in the world. A smaller plan was introduced by architects Van Brunt & Howe, and accepted in 1885. Construction of the station began in 1890. It was built by Northern Pacific Terminal Company at a cost of $300,000, and opened on February 14, 1896. The signature piece of the structure is the 150 ft. tall Romanesque Revivalclock tower. Neon signs were added to the tower in 1948. The signs read "Go by Train" on the northeast and southwest sides and "Union Station" on the northwest and southeast sides. The station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The neon signs on the tower went dark in March 1971, because the railroads using it, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern and Southern Pacific, were preparing to transfer all of their remaining passenger services to Amtrak. For that reason, the station's then-owner, the Portland Terminal Railroad, decided to discontinue operation of the signs. In 1985, two local non-profit groups, the National Railway Historical Society and the Oregon Association of Railway Passengers, led a fundraising campaign for public donations to enable the signs to be restored to operation. New neon tubes, in place of the old, were installed in July, and the signs were switched back on and returned to regular use in September 1985. The "Union Station" signs remain illuminated continuously, while the "Go by Train" signs flash on and off, in a sequence of "Go", then "Go by", then all three words, then off and on and repeat. In 1987, ownership of the station and surrounding land was transferred from Portland Terminal Railroad to the Portland Development Commission as part of the Downtown/Waterfront urban renewal district. Shortly afterwards, Union Station underwent a renovation. It was rededicated in 1996. In 2004, the roadway in front of the station was reconfigured, providing a new connection to the northwest and a forecourt. In addition, the area is being redeveloped, including new housing where railroad tracks once were.
