Baltimore Penn Station - Baltimore, Maryland
N 39° 18.436 W 076° 36.944
18S E 360694 N 4352119
Baltimore Penn Station dates from the Gilded Age of architecture, when railroads were the economic force of the city and train stations were monuments of civic pride.
Waymark Code: WM5KX2
Location: Maryland, United States
Date Posted: 01/19/2009
Published By:
PFF
Views: 34
Baltimore Penn Station is the major train station for Baltimore, serving intercity Amtrak trains on the northeast corridor (including the Acela high speed train), commuter trains (MARC), buses, and taxis. For additional information, see the Wikipedia entry – Pennsylvania Station (Baltimore) - (
visit link) . From a plaque on the front of the building:
Pennsylvania Station dates from the Gilded Age of architecture, when railroads were the economic force of the city and train stations were monuments of civic pride. This station, designed by Kenneth M. Murchison, opened the night of September 14, 1911 to a crowd of 5,000 Baltimoreans, who came to inspect this new “gateway to the city”.
Murchison’s elaborate design of Beaux Arts classicism featured granite, terra cotta, and cast iron on the exterior, and an impressive interior of Sicilian marble walls, domed skylights of leaded glass, and Rockwood ceramic tiles. Rockwood was once the country’s foremost manufacturer of art pottery, producing artistic ceramic tiles for the country’s major hotels, churches, and train stations. The Rockwood tiles in Pennsylvania Station are one of the few installations left intact.
Previously on this site stood the old Union Station, erected by the Northern Central Railway in 1873. In 1884, the Pennsylvania Railroad bought the Northern Central Railway line, thereby firmly tying Baltimore into the eastern seaboard rail network. By the early twentieth century, the old facility could no longer accommodate the growing number of passengers, and Union Station was demolished in 1907.
End of plaque information.
On a personal note, I arrived and departed from this station for my successful job interview with Chessie System Railroads in June 1976, having travelled down from Philadelphia.