by Steve Glischinski
During early January I had had the opportunity to visit the Titanic Exhibit at the St. Paul Union Depot. Not that I'm a big ocean liner fan - although the exhibit is nice and tastefully done - but I wanted to inspect the long closed depot concourse.
By way of background: the depot saw its last train on April 30, 1971, the eve of Amtrak. It was BN's Twin Zephyr for Minneapolis, which ran as a separate train on Friday's from the Empire Builder and North Coast Limited from Chicago. I was able to go down to the depot and watch this last train depart. I was 14 years old at the time, and was accompanied by a friend and his father, who was a BN attorney. Just so that you know things haven't changed that much, just prior to the departure of the last train, a BN cop tried to chase us off the platform! Nice guy! Luckily my friend’s Dad told the cop he'd be in a lot of hot water with BN's legal department and he backed off. I still remember as though it was yesterday watching that last train depart into the darkness and walking back through the concourse. At the entrance to the concourse depot employees were taking down the all the train names and numbers from the arrival and departures board.
Over the next few years the depot sat empty. BN used the depot tracks to store surplus passenger cars, and the only time the depot was open was on Thursday evenings when the Twin City Model RR Club's layout was open. Eventually they moved out and rebuilt the layout in Bandana Square. About 1978 the GN's William Crooks steam engine was disassembled and moved out of the depot headhouse for display in Duluth. I was able to sneak in to the depot a few times in the 1970's and look over the big, vacant building.
After being vacant for over a decade, the depot headhouse building was finally redeveloped and reopened with restaurants and offices in the early 1980s. However, this did not include the train arrivals and departures concourse. This, along with the land under it including the umbrella sheds and tracks, was sold to the U.S. Postal Service for a bulk mail handling facility. All the tracks were pulled up and the umbrella sheds and the accompanying stairways and escalators into the concourse were torn down. The concourse was sealed off except for one stairway from the old track level, which was used by the USPS to access the concourse, which was used for storage. Unheated, the concourse was neglected and the paint and plaster began to fall.
Enter the Titanic exhibit. Thanks to the efforts of Congressman Bruce Vento, the USPS was asked to allow the exhibit to be placed in the concourse which they agreed to. But a lot of work had to be done. The promoters supposedly spent $1 million to clean up the building and get it ready. The exhibit is really the first time the concourse has been open to the public since that last night in 1971.
Looking over the building today, you can see where the paint has fallen off the ceiling, but otherwise the building looks to be in surprisingly good shape. As you enter, the old baggage claim is being used as a coat check and looks like it used to. Entering the high ceilinged concourse, you can see the carvings of steam trains and stage coaches which adorn the upper part of the structure and circle the entire concourse. While all the doors to the gates are sealed up since there are no stairs or escalators any more, all the wood gate structures are still there and intact. The building is heated by big generators which blow hot air into long plastic tubes along the ceiling and the temperature was quite comfortable. The remaining stairway is being used to access the "big piece" of Titanic's hull, which is down on the old track level in its own building.
The old restaurant has been heavily modified into a gift shop and looks just like something you'd find in any suburban shopping mall. Visible all around the building are where the old clocks used to hang, with the round outline of where the clocks where remaining and the words "Central Standard Time" remaining on the walls.The building and exhibit are definitely worth a visit. I hope that more uses can be found for the concourse. Heck, if we ever get commuter trains it would make a great train station for downtown St. Paul!
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