[Images: Chicago Union Station exterior colonnade & Great Hall, Greg Robbins via flickr; Great Hall, twthorpe
via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]

The Chicago Architectural Club is hosting a design competition, Union Station 2020 /
A Crossroads for the High-Speed Rail City, with a submission deadline just around the corner - October 15, 2008. The Burnham Prize event is part of the Burnham 2.0: A Patchwork Plan for Chicago, and entrants are asked to take into consideration a variety of issues including:

                   ... innovative solutions for the transformation of Union Station into
                       a center of high speed rail traffic and related programs.
                       What role can this project play in the reconfiguration of Chicago’s West Loop
                       and of the city and region?
                       How can an existing landmark building be transformed to accommodate
                       and generate a new combination of activities while welcoming an
                       unprecedented level of rail traffic?

Daniel Burnham was a giant in architecture and city planning in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. He was based in Chicago but designed major buildings around the country. Along with associate Edward Bennett, Burnham published the massive Plan of Chicago in 1919; the first comprehensive plan for the controlled growth of an American city. Burnham also designed Chicago's Union Station, completed in 1925, which handled as many as 300 trains and 100,000 passengers each day. Today, the station serves a dwindling number of passengers using the domestic Amtrak rail line, and serves as the hub of the region's commuter rail lines. But as a building it is under-utilized, and if a high speed train were to appear in Illinois, the old station would be a natural link in a high speed corridor.

[Images: Los Angeles Union Station, Main Waiting Room, Mastery of Maps via flickr; Exterior Entry, Jordon via flickr;
Artwork: designslinger]

The state of California has been working on a high speed rail system that will run from San Diego
at the state's southern border, north to the state capitol of Sacramento. If the plan ever comes to fruition, one major stop will be at Los Angeles' Union Station, the last of the great rail terminals built in the U.S. Designed by John Parkinson & Donald B. Parkinson, the station opened in 1939, and hundreds of thousands WWII service men and women passed through the building's central corridor on a weekly basis. Passenger traffic remained high during the immediate post-war years, but train travel took a nose dive as more and more people used cars and planes and the station fell on hard times. Today there is Amtrak and commuter rail line service, along with LA's new subway system, which is bringing new life to the station.

[Images: Statue of Mercury, Grand Central Terminal, MN Photos via flickr; Main Concourse, Eoin C via flickr;
Artwork: designslinger]

Approximately 125,000 commuters and 500,000 visitors pass through the Main Concourse
of New York's Grand Central Terminal on a daily basis. The third incarnation of a train depot at this location, Grand Central may be the most well known train station in the nation. The current building opened in 1913, and is the largest train station in the country with 44 platforms and 66 tracks divided between two levels. It is an architectural and engineering masterpiece, skillfully planned to move people through the transportation hub as quickly and effortlessly as possible. In 1947, over 65 million people, 40% of the U.S. population moved through the terminal building. Ultimately, it suffered the same nationwide decline in passenger traffic and by 1954 a plan for demolishing and replacing was the station was proposed. Other battles ensued, but the station survived and went through a major renovation which culminated in a rededication celebration on October 1, 1998.

It's hard to imagine a train station having as much passenger traffic as an airport does today. There
were once so many people taking trains that some major cities had more than one terminal. Chicago once had five major passenger stations located within a two mile radius. Perhaps with the introduction of high speed service, these rail hubs will experience the kind of activity they did decades ago. If you happen to be in Chicago sometime after November 8, 2009, the Chicago History Museum will display the top ten entries chosen by a panel of the Club's judges. Perhaps the choice of travel for the 21st century - the high speed train - will be coming to an old rail station near you.