Towns and Nature: Los Angeles, CA: Union and Central Stations and Terminal Tower

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Los Angeles, CA: Union and Central Stations and Terminal Tower

If you are here because of "Sterling, OH: CSX/Chessie/B&O RU Tower vs. CSX/Chessie/B&O," then you need to go there.

Union West: (Satellite)

Union East: (Satellite)

Central: (Satellite)

Jenni Phoebe commented on the post below
come on. The AI bot posting this should know this image is reversed.

Historical Los Angeles USA posted
Birdseye View of Los Angeles Union Station Under Construction (1936)
[The rest of the description is just platitudes.]

Marilyn Bidwell commented on the above post
My grandfather was a Civil Engineer in Los Angeles and worked on the track design of the Union Station. This is one of his aerial photos.

Martinez Rodrigues: Backwards image of the 45 acre site that was soon to be LAUPT. If you look close you can see the structural steel skeleton of the main waiting room and concourse and nearly complete clocktower. In addition to the terminal and tracks and sheds, was construction of a Pacific Electric LCL Railway Express facility on the Aliso St South end, a LARY yellow car trolley loop on the Brooklyn Ave. North end and construction of a new US Postal "Terminal Annex" adjacent to LAUPT to handle mail, package and Express, since most shipments went by rail. The three tennent railroads Southern Pacific, Santa Fe and Union Pacific would also have ticketing and passenger agent, baggage and express facilities and offices. The layout design had it's limitations as it was a stub end terminal with no through tracks all arriving trains had to be backed out or broken apart and hostled out, and departing trains had to be backed in for departure. This design flaw is soon to be rectified with construction of new through tracks with fly over of 101 Frwy. to speed up Metrolink and Amtrak service.😉

Doug Evenson: Seems they are building more than ten landings.

Today’s station has five!

Steve Crise posted
Frank C Casner, Chief Towerman,Terminal Tower, Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, Los Angeles, Ca. 1947. Steve Crise Archive

Sailor Pahl, Mar 2022

Has it been permanently converted to an event space or can it be converted between a waiting room and a space?

Joshua Keith, Apr 2023

West side:

Street View, Dec 2020

East side:

Street View, Aug 2024

Alma Lam posted
🚉 Fun fact: Union Station opened in 1939 and is known as “The Last of the Great Railway Stations” built in the United States before air travel became dominant.— at Union Station Los Angeles.

Russell Clampitt: We hardly hear about the train stations a few blocks away that Union Station replaced. They were probably nowhere near as impressive.

Jack Franklin shared

Brian English commented on Alma's post
Great Minds.....

David Kimbrough commented on Alma's post

David Smith Commented on Russell's comment
Russell Clampitt looks pretty impressive.

David Smith Commented on Russell's comment
And before Central Station, there was this

Because of Russell's comment above, I recognized the significance of the "Central St (Abon'd)" label in the lower-left corner.

1953/56 Los Angeles Quad @ 24,000

Southern Pacific did street running in Alameda Street. Santa Fe was west of the river, and UP was east of the river, but both would also have to do street running to get to Central Station. No wonder the railroads paid for Union Station in the middle of the Depression.