KCRag Forum

I walked through last week. It looks nice. I just wish they found a way to open up the DT skyline to the north part of US. The view would be great and you could have a window for watching trains. Kids would love it.

normalthings wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2019 10:16 pm

Looks like they are adding/rebuilding a few of the layouts

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 11:22 am I walked through last week. It looks nice. I just wish they found a way to open up the DT skyline to the north part of US. The view would be great and you could have a window for watching trains. Kids would love it.

Absolutely true!!! My Dad worked below on the station platforms for 30 years. 3;00 to 11;30 p.m. I can remember so well going there to pick my dad up at around midnight. This is between 1967 to about 1975. I was born in 1963. The magic of the vastness of the grand ballroom was incredible to my young eyes. At this point in the stations history it was literally abandoned at this hour. I swear I could stand at the entrance of what is now the Amtrak station and I could create an echo. One of Dads friends who was an Engineer let me ride down to what use to be the roundhouse with him one afternoon. So many special memories of one magnificent palace.

KCTOGA wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 1:27 pm

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 11:22 am I walked through last week. It looks nice. I just wish they found a way to open up the DT skyline to the north part of US. The view would be great and you could have a window for watching trains. Kids would love it.

Absolutely true!!! My Dad worked below on the station platforms for 30 years. 3;00 to 11;30 p.m. I can remember so well going there to pick my dad up at around midnight. This is between 1967 to about 1975. I was born in 1963. The magic of the vastness of the grand ballroom was incredible to my young eyes. At this point in the stations history it was literally abandoned at this hour. I swear I could stand at the entrance of what is now the Amtrak station and I could create an echo. One of Dads friends who was an Engineer let me ride down to what use to be the roundhouse with him one afternoon. So many special memories of one magnificent palace.

That is such a special story. Thank you for sharing it.

beautyfromashes wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 11:22 am I walked through last week. It looks nice. I just wish they found a way to open up the DT skyline to the north part of US. The view would be great and you could have a window for watching trains. Kids would love it.

I wonder why those back windows were covered. At least the freighthouse bridge provides a similar view.

I'd love to see Union Station become better connected visually to downtown somehow. The combination of 2 Pershing's bulk and the limited number of north facing windows keep the building feeling isolated.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

https://survivekc.com/

So pleased to see the phenomenal success Union Station has become! Could so easily have gone a very different way.

It's incredible that the building is so huge that there are still large portions of it that are essentially untouched

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOer-ZvOvk

TheLastGentleman wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 2:15 pm It's incredible that the building is so huge that there are still large portions of it that are essentially untouched

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOer-ZvOvk

Yep, I once explored the building and got into some of those rough areas in the video fairly easily.
Not sure they will ever be rehabilitated as they are definitely off the beaten path.

KCLover wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 3:14 pmYep, I once explored the building and got into some of those rough areas in the video fairly easily.
Not sure they will ever be rehabilitated as they are definitely off the beaten path.

How did you get there? I would've assumed areas like that would be locked up

Back in the 1970s and 1980s the building was open, at least until the separate Amshack opened in 1985. The Amtrak ticket counter was in a bouncy house in the middle of the main floor (Amtrak did not want to heat the whole station). Some freight operations continued, and there were a sprinkling of workers both day and night.

There were a few other tenants, notably the Lobster Pot restaurant, and, accessible by an elevator near the bathrooms by today's Science Center, there was a model train city on the fourth or fifth floor, rendering around 3000 square feet into a foamers convention (cannot remember which floor now). Visitors were welcomed one day per month.

TheLastGentleman wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 2:15 pm It's incredible that the building is so huge that there are still large portions of it that are essentially untouched

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOer-ZvOvk

2:31-2:51 had my heart racing and my stomach in knots.

Union Station’s New Artwork Is Starting To Take Shape

As you read this, Union Station is putting the finishing touches on a striking, larger-than-life moving sculpture entitled Reflecting Motion. The glistening, floating artwork—which is being created by famed artist Patrick Shearn and his Poetics Kinetics team—will be unveiled at a party on May 18th and open to the public the following day. The installation has been creating buzz ever since it was announced last month. The mammoth, free-flowing, oval-shaped sculpture will cascade over the new Union Station green space—Haverty Family Yards—through mid-September.
...

https://www.inkansascity.com/innovators ... ake-shape/

Pictures don't do this thing justice. Very cool in motion

It is a cool exhibit. I plan on spending a couple of summer days lying on my back underneath and pretending I'm at the beach.

Looks like a creepy tinfoil blob horror movie, CGI'd into the scene. And given it's not makes it all the more intriguing.

Some shots from celebration at the station

12 grand Amtrak train stations and their histories

https://www.azcentral.com/picture-galle ... 695435002/