Hartford Union Station is a railroad station in

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

, United States on the New Haven–Springfield Line. It is served by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

, , , and

intercity rail Inter-city rail services are Express train, express trains that run services that connect cities over longer distances than Commuter rail, commuter or Regional rail, regional trains. They include rail services that are neither short-distance co ...

service, plus CT Rail

Hartford Line The Hartford Line is a commuter rail service between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, using the Amtrak-owned New Haven–Springfield Line. The project is a joint venture between the states of Connecticut and Massachuset ...

commuter rail Commuter rail or suburban rail is a Passenger train, passenger rail service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Central business district, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter town ...

service and

CTfastrak CTfastrak (constructed as the New Britain-Hartford Busway) is a regional bus rapid transit system currently operating between downtown Hartford and Downtown New Britain station in New Britain in central Connecticut. Operated by Connecticut Tr ...

bus rapid transit service. The

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a architectural style, style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revivalism (architecture), revival style incorporates 11th- and 12th-century ...

building was designed by George Keller, executed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge and built in 1889. A 1914 fire required a rebuild; the interior was renovated in 1987. It has been listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

since 1975.

Architecture

The station is located on the western edge of downtown Hartford, on a three-acre () block between Union Place and Spruce Street on the east and west and Church and Asylum streets to the north and south.Clouette, Bruce; ;

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

; July 9, 1975, retrieved April 9, 2011. Opposite the main building on Union Place are a mixture of other old buildings and parking lots. To the west is a triangular parking lot and the

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...

carrying Interstate 84 and U.S. Route 6, which curves around the north of the station as well. Across Asylum on the south is

Bushnell Park Bushnell Park in Hartford, Connecticut is the second oldest publicly funded park in the United States, after Boston Common, which was established in 1634, and converted to a park in the 1830’s. Bushnell Park was conceived by the Reverend Hora ...

, also listed on the Register. The main building is located between the tracks and Union Place. It is a three-story rectangular building in rough-faced Portland

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Ty ...

with two smaller, similarly shaped two-story wings on the north and south. The main building has a flat roof; the wings are

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d and tiled, with dormer windows piercing them at regular intervals. On the east (front) facade, a wide set of steps rises to the main entrance, beneath a flat hood at the springlines of three of the large segmental arches that run across the first story. Above these is a stylized floral molded course. The second story has similar but smaller segmental arches set with a recessed panel and four-pane windows. The central

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

has "1914" carved into its panel; all others are blank. The two wings have four-pane rectangular windows. At the station level were originally four tracks (currently one) divided by a middle platform. Two sets of iron roofs create a train shed. On the wall side those roofs are supported by spiral-shaped iron

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

. In the middle columns and simple curved iron brackets support the

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as Beam (structure), beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so ...

es that hold up the shed roof. The interior has been remodeled since the station was rebuilt. It is a mostly open area with stairs along the west wall leading up to the elevated tracks and benches along the east. Flooring is red tile. There are offices on the north and south; some look out over the main space.

History

The station was built in 1889, and served the Hartford and New Haven Railroad, Central New England Railway, Hartford and Connecticut Valley Railroad (all of which were acquired by the

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated principally in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

) and the

New York and New England Railroad The New York and New England Railroad (NY&NE) was a railroad connecting southern New York State with Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; and Boston, Massachusetts. It operated under that name from 1873 to 1893. Prior to 1873 it was ...

, but the entire structure had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1914. It was listed on the

as "Hartford Union Station" in 1975. The station is currently served by one track and a side platform. The second track and platform were removed by Amtrak in the 1990s to reduce maintenance costs and because the underlying structure is no longer strong enough to support more than one train at a time. A section of the platform was converted to high level for accessible boarding as part of the

project. It features a -wide hinged edge that can be flipped up to allow wide freight trains to pass. The new platform opened on August 4, 2016.

service started on June 16, 2018.

service began on March 28, 2015, after fifteen years of planning and three years of construction. The I-84 Hartford Project may require realigning the highway and rail line, in which case new platforms would be constructed on the new alignment, though Union Station would continue to be used for ticketing and waiting area. The state released a slate of 5 options - some just west of the current station, others slightly to the south - in October 2017. A decision on which option will be built was expected in early 2018. In November 2024, ConnDOT was awarded a $2.6 million federal grant for planning of the station relocation and associated double-tracking work.

Services

Rail

AmtrakRegionalSpringfieldShuttleatHartford

Hartford is situated midway along the New Haven–Springfield Line, a non-electrified branch of the electrified

Northeast Corridor The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston in the north to Washington, D.C., in the south, with major stops in Providence, Rhod ...

. Amtrak operates four services through Hartford, with a total of about twenty trains per day in each direction. Four Amtrak services run on the New Haven–Springfield Line with a stop at Hartford: the , the , some service, and the .

commuter rail service is split between Amtrak trains and ConnDOT (CT Rail) trains.

Bus

Union Station serves as the northeastern terminus for

, a bus rapid transit system operating between the station and in central

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

. Operated by

Connecticut Transit CT Transit (styled as CT''transit'') is a public transportation bus system serving many metropolitan areas and their surrounding suburbs in the state of Connecticut. CT Transit is a division of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, alth ...

, Five local and four express routes operate along the busway and over on-street loops in downtown Hartford. CTTransit's Hartford Division provides local and express bus service to the station on a variety of routes.

Greyhound The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a dog breed, breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Some are kept as show dogs or pets. Greyhounds are defined as a tall, muscular, smooth-c ...

Peter Pan Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical ...

and

FlixBus FlixBus (; styled FLiXBUS) is a German brand that offers low-cost Intercity bus service, intercity coach services in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. It is owned by , which also operates FlixTrain, FlixCar, , and Greyhound Lines. F ...

serve Union Station with intercity bus service.

References

External links

Hartford, CT – Hartford Line
{{National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut, state=collapsed

Hartford Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

CTfastrak Bus stations in Hartford County, Connecticut Railway stations in Hartford County, Connecticut Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut Stations on the New Haven–Springfield Line Former New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad stations Former Central New England Railway stations Former New York and New England Railroad stations

Buildings and structures in Hartford, Connecticut National Register of Historic Places in Hartford, Connecticut Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Connecticut Railway stations in the United States opened in 1889 George Keller buildings 1889 establishments in Connecticut