The Other Way out of Town
Just across the street from Union Station, the NP and GN called King Street Station home. Famous trains called here as well, and to some extent, at least one still does. The North Coast Limited and Empire Builder were just some of the top of the line passenger trains that left from the sheds of King Street. Unlike the Milwaukee Road, UP, and NP, the GN left town heading north out along the Pacific coast. At Everet the line to the Midwest turned east and headed over the Cascades and Stevens Pass. It was there that the GN had a small electrification project of its own, and varnish like the Empire Builder was headed by powerful electric locomotives until the advent of dieselization.
Amtrak's Empire Builder still leaves King Street on a daily basis, still in close proximity to Union Station and the haunts of old Olympians. Just like the original Builder, she heads north and the modern streamliner rolls through the ever expanding Seattle area and small coastal towns along the shores. In the photo above at Mulkiteo, a beautiful winter morning is at hand along the old GN main. The air is crisp, the leaves have turned, and fresh snow tops the distant mountains. This is still the other way out of town, although for rail passengers heading to the Midwest for holidays and family, it is also pretty much the only way out. How times change.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Author's note: it is possible to leave King St. on a southbound Coast Starlight or Cascades for points south, and eventually east, if desired.
Comments
Dan
As you say, the station was a joint occupation, funded by the Northern Pacific and Great Northern, completed in 1906. Nearby Union Station (1911) was home to the Milwaukee Road, and "freeloader" Union Pacific. (UP never laid rail up from Portland to Seattle.)
Along with the Great Merger (BN) came "modernization."
Most apparent to the casual observer, obscene microwave dishes began to grow out of the most prominent feature, the clock tower, a reproduction of the famous tower in Piazza San Marco, in Venice, Italy. The tower clocks seized up and not fixed. In the "modern" digital age, who knows how to read a clock face?
A "modern" roof that reportedly leaked replaced the original Terracotta tile roof, which successfully warded of the alleged Seattle rain for almost half a century, without leaking.
Finally, the beautiful ornate waiting room ceiling was hidden behind a wire supported false ceiling, lowering the apparent room size to one considered of "modern" proportion.
(Lights dim, scene change)
In a rare display of vision, the City of Seattle bought the station from BN, now BNSF, in 2008 for $10.00. Then began reversing the "modern" look; what I would call retro-vation.
The four-faced clock was restarted in 2009.
That was followed by the recent infusion of Obama Administration Funding to national rail passenger service projects, with $18.2M (USD) approved to completely renovate King Street Station to her original historic splender, worthy of her place as a National Historic structure.
A leak resistant Terracotta tile roof will replace the modern roof. The interior false ceiling will be removed, to reveal the beautiful ornate original ceiling. Cut 'n paste:
http://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2010/07/13/king-street-station-ceiling-uncovered/
The Seattle Department of Transportation has a rich website, with a ton of information on the various projects involved in the retro-vation of King Street Station:
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/kingstreet.htm
Finally, those hideous gray fiberglass microwave dishes are "history!"
Dan
Best regards, Michael Sol
-Leland