Here is a picture that I took 2 1/2 weeks ago from atop the newly renovated Liberty Memorial tower. It looks north toward downtown. That is the Science City thing stuck on the left with the parking lot to the left of it. There used to be about a dozen tracks through the station. Is that Crown Center on the right? I haven't been there yet.


spmarch@attbi.com

They did a heck of a restoration job all right, and it's a real gem of a station. Crown Centre would be just out of the picture to the bottom right. (It's a pretty big development, and would likely extend somewhat behind the photographer as well.) The skywalk you see in the bottom right travels back a bit further linking Union
Station to Crown Centre. I'm glad to hear Amtrak is moving in. All of my K.C. acquaintances were very much hoping that would work out eventually. The picture almost looks like an artists rendering, since it's so clean and the colors are so bright. Great project.

Sincerely
David Ackerman

david_ackerman@yahoo.com

Folks,
I feel it necessary to interject here. The trainshed covering the CSX tracks are not to hide them from public view (that side of the viaduct is pretty much hidden from the downtown by its location)- the reason was far more pedestrian. The viaduct over the city streets was approaching 100 years old and the city was having problems with leaks thru the deck. Conrail/CSX couldnÂ’t take the tracks out of service for the amount of time needed to repair and waterproof it correctly therefore a "roof" was needed to redirect the rainwater away from the bridge deck.
As to why the station wasnÂ’t included in the mall. There was a proposal during the construction of Circle Centere to add the bridge as stated above but when the developers saw the price tag they wanted more control over the retail spaces in the station. Unfortunately the owner of the station and the developers of the mall did not see "eye to eye" over this issue. The Developers who had the city government's attention basically told the station ownership to go "take a hike". It never went beyond that.
If I can add my 0.02 here, I would love to see the Union Station brought back to some sense of her former glory but there really isnÂ’t a good use for her other than what she was designed for namely a train station. The building is too far from the main pedestrian thorofares to work as a shopping center and while a museum might work there, Indy just finished a brand new State Museum about ten blocks away which pretty much puts the kibosh on that idea as well. Sadly like so many historic buildings, Indianapolis Union Station was too well designed as a train station precluding her use for much anything else.


kenta@ameritech.net

And what of the Chattanooga Choo Choo. That was the first station redevelopment I had heard of. I rode a trolley there in the late 1970s or early 1980s and remember a large collection of passenger cars that served as a hotel.