Grand Rapids Union Station

Grand Rapids Union Station was a union station in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A Georgian Revival building of two stories, it was built in 1900 on 61 Ionia Avenue SW and was closed in 1958. The building was demolished in 1958 and 1959 to make space for the U.S. Route 131 highway.

History

In five years after Union Station's 1900 construction, 750,000 passengers passed through it. In early decades, Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad excursion trains to the station brought more than 2000 visitors from southern Michigan and Indiana on Sundays.

Passenger services

The station served the Pere Marquette Railway, Michigan Central Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad. The Grand Trunk Western Railway and the New [York Central Railroad] were served at other stations in Grand Rapids. By 1946, Michigan Central operations were entirely folded into New York Central operations.
Noteworthy passenger train service at 1950 included:

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway :
*Pere Marquettes
*Resort Special
*Grand Rapids–Petoskey; unnamed segments in off-season
New York Central Railroad:
*unnamed train
Pennsylvania Railroad:
*Northern Arrow
*unnamed local train on same route as above
*unnamed train timed to connect at Cincinnati to the Louisville & Nashville's Southland, bound for Florida

Waning years

By the 1960s the Chesapeake and Ohio's trains were the only trains serving the successor to the station. The Chicago–Grand Rapids trains were added to the appellation, the Pere Marquettes in 1965. These trains ended in 1971 when C&O passed control of its passenger trains over to Amtrak.

Present-day station

In 1984 passenger trains returned with the introduction of Amtrak's Pere Marquette trains between Chicago and Grand Rapids. In 2004, the Vernon J. Ehlers Station, Grand Rapids' new station, opened.