Washington Union Station

Washington Union Station, known locally as Union Station, is a major train station, transportation hub, and leisure destination in Washington, D.C. Designed by Daniel Burnham and opened in 1907, it is Amtrak's second-busiest station and North America's 13th-busiest railroad station. The station is the southern terminus of the Northeast Corridor, an electrified rail line extending north through major cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston, and the busiest passenger rail line in the nation. In 2015, it served just under five million passengers.

An intermodal facility, Union Station also serves MARC and VRE commuter rail services, the Washington Metro, the DC Streetcar, intercity bus lines, and local Metrobus buses. It carries the IATA airport code of ZWU.

At the height of its traffic, during World War II, as many as 200,000 passengers passed through the station in a single day. In 1988, a headhouse wing was added and the original station renovated for use as a shopping mall. As of 2014, Union Station was one of the busiest rail facilities and shopping destinations in the United States, visited by over 40 million people a year. The COVID-19 pandemic and other factors caused a sharp decline in retail and dining; by late 2022, more than half its commercial space was vacant. Amtrak took control of the station in 2024 and is working on a major renovation and expansion. On August 27, 2025, the Trump administration announced it would negotiate to resume direct federal management of non-railroad areas.

Before Union Station opened, each of the major railroads operated out of one of two stations:

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line ran east on D Street NE across North Capitol Street, then north on Delaware Avenue NE. It divided into two lines. The Metropolitan branch continued north on 1st Street NE, turning east on New York Ave NE and continuing north through Eckington. The other line turned east onto I Street NE up to 7th Street NE where it headed back north on what is today West Virginia Avenue running next to the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (now Gallaudet University).

When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad announced in 1901 that they had agreed to build a new union station together, the city had two reasons to celebrate. The decision meant that both railroads would soon remove their trackwork and terminals from the National Mall. Though changes there appeared only gradually, the consolidation of the depots allowed the creation of the Mall as it appears today. Secondly, the plan to bring all the city's railroads under one roof promised that Washington would finally have a station both large enough to handle large crowds and impressive enough to befit the city's role as the federal capital. The station was to be designed under the guidance of Daniel Burnham, a famed Chicago architect and member of the U.S. Senate Park Commission, who in September 1901 wrote to the Commission's chairman, Sen. James McMillan, of the proposed project: "The station and its surroundings should be treated in a monumental manner, as they will become the vestibule of the city of Washington, and as they will be in close proximity to the Capitol itself."

After two years of complicated and sometimes contentious negotiations, Congress passed S. 4825 (58th-1st session) entitled "An Act to provide a union railroad station in the District of Columbia" which was signed into law by 26th President Theodore Roosevelt on February 28, 1903. The Act authorized the Washington Terminal Company (which was to be jointly owned by the B&O and the PRR-controlled Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad) to construct a station "monumental in character" that would cost at least $4 million (equivalent to $117 million in 2024). (The main station building's actual cost eventually exceeded $5.9 million [equivalent to $173 million in 2024].) Including additional outlays for new terminal grades, approaches, bridges, viaducts, coach and freight yards, tunnels, shops, support buildings and other infrastructure, the total cost to the Terminal Company for all the improvements associated with Union Station exceeded $16 million (equivalent to $468 million in 2024). This cost was financed by $12 million (equivalent to $351 million in 2024) in first mortgage bonds as well as advances by the owners which were repaid by stock and cash.^{[citation needed]}

Each carrier also received $1.5 million (equivalent to $43.9 million in 2024) in government funding to compensate them for the costs of eliminating grade crossings in the city. The only railroad station in the nation specifically authorized by the U.S. Congress, the building was primarily designed by William Pierce Anderson of the Chicago architectural firm of D.H. Burnham & Company.