Union Station is a former

train station A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing suc ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, United States, constructed between 1910 and 1911 to serve the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

and the

Milwaukee Road The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (CMStP&P), better known as the Milwaukee Road , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States, Midwest and Pacific Northwest, Northwest of the United States from 1847 ...

. It was originally named Oregon and Washington Station, after a subsidiary line of the Union Pacific. It serves today as the headquarters of

Sound Transit Sound Transit (ST), officially the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority, is a public transit agency serving the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. It manages the Link light rail system in Se ...

, the public transit agency serving the city and metro area.

History

Seattle - Union Station interior pano 01

Located at the corner of S. Jackson Street and 4th Avenue S. in the Pioneer Square neighborhood, the station opened on May 20, 1911. The Milwaukee Road discontinued passenger service to Union Station 50 years later, on May 22, 1961, and the Union Pacific followed suit on April 30, 1971. With no passenger rail service serving Seattle from Union Station, the building remained largely empty. An antique store filled the great hall for several years. After nearly 30 years of sitting idle, the station finally experienced an expansive renovation supported by Nitze-Stagen with financial backing from Microsoft co-founder

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American businessman, computer programmer, and investor. He co-founded Microsoft, Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which was followed by the ...

. The Union Station's renovation was the winner of the 2000 National Historic Preservation Award. The building has served as the headquarters of

since 1999. Its grand hall is available to the public as a venue for weddings and other events. In Seattle, the term ''Union Station'' refers not only to the main station building, but also to the several adjacent office buildings at 505, 605, 625 and 705 5th Avenue South.

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

was a major tenant of these properties from 2000 to 2011, all but one owned by Opus Northwest, and the other by Vulcan. The entire complex is earthquake-proofed by an underground ring of rubber. The remaining passenger train service to Seattle (

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 ...

long-distance trains and Sounder commuter trains) operates from

King Street Station King Street Station is a train station in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is served by Amtrak's '' Cascades'', '' Coast Starlight'', and ''Empire Builder'', as well as Sounder commuter trains run by Sound Transit. The station also anc ...

, located one block to the west of Union Station. The

International District/Chinatown station International District/Chinatown station is a light rail Metro station, station that is part of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel in Seattle, Washington, United States. The station is located at the tunnel's south end, at 5th Avenue South an ...

of the

Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel The Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT), formerly also known as the Metro Bus Tunnel, is a pair of public transit tunnels in Seattle, Washington, United States. The double-track tunnel and its four stations serve Link light rail trains ...

is located directly adjacent to Union Station, mostly below street level. It opened in 1990 by Metro Transit to serve buses and was renovated in the 2000s to also accommodate

Link light rail Link light rail is a light rail system with some rapid transit characteristics that serves the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. It is managed by Sound Transit in partnership with local transit pro ...

trains on Sound Transit's 1 Line. Union Station is proposed as the site of a second light rail station for the

Ballard Link Extension Link light rail is a light rail system with some rapid transit characteristics that serves the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It is managed by Sound Transit in partnership with local transit providers, and consists ...

, which would be constructed under 4th Avenue under one proposal. It was used as the Teikoku train station in the pilot episode of The Man in the High Castle.

History

References

Further reading