- Memphis Union Station
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Memphis Union Station was a jointly owned passenger terminal serving the Missouri Pacific Railroad, St. Louis Southwestern Railway, Louisville and Nashville Railroad, Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway and Southern Railway. The terminal was built in the Beaux-Arts style. The station was located on Calhoun Street, between south Second Street and Rayburn Boulevard (now south Third Street). This location in south Memphis was approximately two blocks east of the other major Memphis railroad terminal, Memphis Grand Central Station.
Contents
History
Memphis Union Station postcard issued soon after the station opened in April 1912.
Memphis Union Station Company was chartered in Tennessee on September 25, 1909, for the purpose of operating Union Station. Construction of the facility began in April 1910 and the new station opened for service on April 1, 1912. The architectural design of the station was a source of pride for Memphis, and the main building was the largest stone structure in Memphis.
Memphis Union station's purpose was to create a union of the passenger and express railway operations of the major railway lines that terminated at or traveled through Memphis, principally between east and west. Traffic between the north and the south was generally carried by the Illinois Central railway, whose operations at Memphis were large enough to justify a separate Illinois “Central” station two blocks to the west of Union Station.
The railway engineering approach to fulfill this requirement was as a stub-end design, meaning that all trains using the station required a "reverse movement", to access the station's platforms. Arriving trains that at the end of their runs at Memphis pulled directly into the station's platforms and discharged their passengers and express packages. Then the empty cars were backed out by their locomotives, or hauled out by station switcher engines. Trains passing through Memphis stopped on the east-west through tracks south of the station, and reverse moved (backed up) into the station platforms. When these trains were ready to depart, they reverse moved again, pulling out of the station under their own power back onto the through tracks south of the station. The station also had additional tracks for storage and servicing of passenger cars and a roundhouse and turntable allowed locomotive servicing to be accomplished on site.
This configuration served the primary objective of the “western lines”, such as the St. Louis Southwestern (the Cotton Belt), the Rock Island and the Missouri Pacific; at Memphis. These lines were primarily interested in receiving passengers, mail and express at Memphis as a gateway to their on-line destinations and their connections to lines which reached the west coast. There was little through traffic presented to these lines at Memphis, since the highest volume of through traffic between the mid-continent and Texas & the far west, was at New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago. Roads such as the Cotton Belt, Rock Island, Missouri Pacific and Southern Pacific (controller of the Cotton Belt) were fully occupied serving all of the above named gateways. So Memphis held very little interest to them as a source of long distance passenger line-haul revenue.
As passenger train traffic declined after World War II, studies were performed to assess the feasibility of consolidating all Memphis train operations in either Union Station or Central Station. The various railroads could never agree on consolidation arrangements, and Memphis Union Station continued in operation into the early 1960s.
Demise
St. Louis Southwestern Railway discontinued passenger service to Memphis in October 1952, and Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway merged into Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) in 1957, effectively reducing the number of tenants in Memphis Union Station from five to three. In early 1964, Missouri Pacific Railroad served notice that their last passenger train serving Memphis would be moved from Union Station into a former freight station on west Calhoun Street. The Missouri Pacific benefitted from being a foreign (not otherwise doing business in Tennessee) corporation in Tennessee, once it’s petition before the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was heard, to cease operation of passenger service to Memphis, it could rely upon legal precedent (as when Gulf Mobile & Ohio, ended service south of Saint Louis, and thereby voiding its joint agreement to fund New Orleans’ Union Station ) to void its joint agreement to support the operation of Memphis Union Station.
The remaining two tenant railroads in in Memphis Union Station were unwilling to assume the full burden for maintenance and operation of the station, as the remaining passenger and express freight revenues of these carriers into Memphis, brought in far less revenue than the continued operation of the station required. Louisville and Nashville Railroad made arrangements to became a tenant at Memphis Central Station, and Southern Railway returned to their ancient freight station on Lauderdale Street. Memphis Union Station was closed on April 1, 1964, fifty-two years to the day from the time the station had opened with great fanfare.
A prolonged court battle ensued, with the City of Memphis claiming that Union Station had been abandoned without the approval of the Tennessee Public Service Commission. After appeals courts ruled against the railroads, both L&N and Southern were forced to reopen part of Union Station on December 1, 1966. Missouri Pacific had successfully discontinued their last Memphis passenger service, a Memphis to Little Rock connecting train, in August 1965, and was thus not affected by the order to reopen Memphis Union Station.
Passenger traffic into Memphis on both the L&N and Southern was negligible, and the added expense burden of reopening Union Station caused both roads to soon plan train discontinuance proceedings of their own. These efforts were ultimately successful, and Union Station was again closed for a second and final time on March 30, 1968, following the departure of the last Southern Railway passenger train from Memphis. The Memphis Union Station property was sold to the United States Postal Service for construction of a new mail sorting facility, and the station itself was demolished by February 1969.
See also
- Central Station (Memphis)
- Humming Bird (passenger train)
- Lone Star (SSW passenger train)
- Morning Star (train)
- Tennessean (passenger train)
References
External links
Coordinates: 35°08′21″N 90°02′16″W / 35.139247°N 90.037679°W
Categories:- Union stations in the United States
- Stations along Louisville and Nashville Railroad lines
- Stations along Missouri Pacific Railroad lines
- Stations along Southern Railway lines in the United States
- St. Louis Southwestern Railway
- Railway stations opened in 1912
- Railway stations in Tennessee
- Buildings and structures in Memphis, Tennessee
- Transportation in Memphis, Tennessee
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