don@oakhill.UUCP (Don Weiss) (02/09/85)
While we're talking about train stations, let's all shed a tear for the departed train concourse of Chicago's Union Station, which was torn down maybe 15 years ago to make way for a skyscraper. (As of a few years ago at least, the trains were still coming into the double-stub terminal, but they just emptied into a dreary concrete-walled basement.) I have fond memories of commuting through that station in the years around 1960. Its ugly industrial charm was much in keeping with the Chicago of Carl Sandburg. When I saw Silver Streak, it appeared to me that the train was crashing into the Union Station *Annex*, immediately to the west of the concourse building and connected to it under a street. This building (which I'm pretty sure still stands) has a large waiting room but *no* tracks approaching it, so I was rather amused. With this latest revelation, I conclude that there is a considerable similar- ity between this Annex and Toronto's Union Station.