What Union Station really needs is what Union Station in Kansas City has. Have you ever been there? It's a great story of beauty, neglect, and restoration that resulted in a great working train station that is a point of real civic pride in that little car-town in the midwest.
On the second floor of the main entry room, a series of connected rooms run all the way around the top of the border of the room, and they have constructed a free museum in there with all the history, pictures, models and everything telling the entire story of Union Station. It's really well-done with a WEALTH of information about trains, beaux arts architecture, Daniel Burnham, the station, the Gilded Age, etc...
It was one of the coolest things I have seen in a train station, and certainly would be appropriate for our Union Station that has an equally interesting history, just without a period of neglect as dark as KC's.
KC Star's fantastic transportation and growth reporter Jeffrey Spivak wrote a great book about the station that compiled the whole story of the restoration which someone gave us after visiting.
The KC Union Station is my favorite train station I've visited, above DC's and New York's Grand Central. Penn might've taken the cake, but that was long gone before I was around.
Union Station here should certainly have something like what they've done in KC. They'll have to squeeze it in somewhere, though, since our station functions on a much larger scale than theirs (limited train service, and they rent out the huge waiting room for special events and have a children's museum downstairs.)
Commenting by HaloScan
