Los Angeles Train Station, LA Union Station

Passmoore, Works Of Alexander & I.V.

Embarking from this great place is often a highlight of any train trip. See also the Orlando Train Station, which for some reason is far more popular with visitors to this web site. Great public spaces like this one often feature blatant excess. Here, the central hall's vaulted ceiling reaches at least 50 feet up. Profound echoes confirm it is a cavernous place. Was it worth it? -Building so much empty vertical space? Nobody uses it, and yet like Rome's pantheon, it gives many a sense of awe and appreciation. An interesting nonprofit is devoted to such issues. A relevant passage from John Moody's "The Railroad Builders; a chronicle of the welding of the states" (1919) -- "Attention should not, however, be diverted from the fact that during all these years a vast expansion of competitive lines had been going on far southward of the Union Pacific. Under the guiding genius of Collis P. Huntington, the Southern Pacific Company in 1884 had consolidated and solidified a gigantic system of railways extending from New Orleans to the Pacific and throughout the entire State of California to Portland, Oregon, with branch lines radiating through Texas and making close connection with roads entering St. Louis. In addition to these railroads, Huntington acquired control of a steamship line operating from New York to New Orleans and Galveston, and subsequently of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, operating along the coast from Oregon south to the Isthmus of Panama and across the Pacific Ocean. The ever-growing effects of this powerful and well-managed competitor--combined with the large development of the Santa Fe system during these years, the competition of the completed Northern Pacific, and the possibilities of the new Great Northern Railway or Hill line, now completing its main artery to the Pacific--were far-reaching enough in themselves to bring the Union Pacific upon evil days. Consequently few were surprised when, under the great pressure of the panic of 1893, the property was forced to confess insolvency. The Union Pacific had simply repeated the story of most American railroads; it had been constructed in advance of population and had to pay the penalty. Yet it had more than justified the hopes of the daring spirits who projected it. It may have made individuals bankrupt, but it magnificently fulfilled the part which it was expected to play. It had opened up millions of acres to cultivation, given homesteads to millions of people, many of whom were immigrants from Europe, developed mineral lands of incalculable value, created several new great States, and made the American nation a unified whole. Its subsequent history belongs to another chapter of this story--a history that is richer than the first in the matter of financial success but that can never surpass the early pioneering years in real and permanent achievement." Series Description: Famous old train station in the heart of Los Angeles, near the Olvera Street historic district. Starting point for many of my train travels.