Cincinnati Union Terminal facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cincinnati Union Terminal
Amtrak intercity train station
Main (east) facade
Location	1301 Western Avenue Cincinnati, Ohio
Owned by	City of Cincinnati
Line(s)	CSX Cincinnati Terminal Subdivision
Platforms	1 side platform (originally 8)
Tracks	2 (originally 16)
Connections	SORTA Metro route 49
Other information
Station code	Amtrak: CIN
History
Opened	March 19, 1933
Closed	October 29, 1972; reopened July 29, 1991
Traffic
Passengers (FY2019)	8,641 (Amtrak)
Services
Preceding station Amtrak Following station Connersville toward Chicago Cardinal Maysville toward New York
Former services Lua error in Module:Adjacent_stations at line 236: Unknown line "Cincinnati-Cleveland".
Interactive map
Area	287 acres (116 ha)
Built	1928–1933
Restored	2016–2018
Architect	Fellheimer & Wagner
Architectural style(s)	Art Deco
Visitors	1.8 million (in 2019)
Website	Amtrak station listing
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Designated	May 5, 1977
Reference no.	72001018
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Designated	October 31, 1972
Reference no.	72001018
Invalid designation
Designated	March 6, 1974
Reference no.	0079-1974
Location
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Cincinnati Union Terminal (often called CUT or CIN) is a famous building in Cincinnati, Ohio. It's both a train station and a huge museum center! You can catch an Amtrak train called the Cardinal here, which runs three times a week.

The building is also home to the Cincinnati Museum Center. This includes the Cincinnati History Museum, the Museum of Natural History & Science, the Duke Energy Children's Museum, a history library, and an Omnimax theater.

Union Terminal is known for its amazing Art Deco design. This style was popular in the 1920s and 1930s. The building has cool artworks, like mosaic murals by Winold Reiss. These murals show scenes of Cincinnati's history and industries. The main area, called the Rotunda, has two giant mosaic murals.

The Cincinnati Union Terminal Company was formed in 1927. Their goal was to build one big train station to replace five smaller ones. Construction took place from 1928 to 1933. The project included building bridges, mail buildings, and even a power plant.

At first, not many people used the terminal. But during World War II, it became very busy. After the war, fewer people traveled by train, and the terminal's use went down. Train service stopped in 1972, and Amtrak moved to a smaller station nearby. For a while, the terminal was empty. In the 1980s, it even became a shopping mall called "Land of Oz"!

Later, two Cincinnati museums joined together and fixed up the terminal. It reopened in 1990 as the Cincinnati Museum Center. Amtrak trains returned in 1991. A big renovation project costing $228 million was finished in 2018, making the terminal even better.

Train Services at Union Terminal

Today, the station serves Amtrak's Cardinal line. This train runs every other day, three times a week. It travels between Chicago and New York City. Trains to Chicago arrive very early in the morning, around 1:31 a.m., and trains to New York arrive around 3:17 a.m. They both leave about 10 minutes later.

Because of these late-night times, not as many people use this station compared to other Amtrak stations in Ohio. For example, in 2021, about 7,164 people got on or off trains here.

You can also get to the terminal using Cincinnati's bus system, Metro. Route 49 connects the terminal to downtown Cincinnati and other neighborhoods.

Past Train Services

When Union Terminal first opened in 1933, seven different railroad companies used it. These included the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and Pennsylvania Railroad.

Amtrak used the terminal for a short time after it started in 1971. But then, Amtrak moved to a smaller station in 1972. They didn't return to Union Terminal until 1991.

Many famous trains used to stop at Union Terminal. Here's a list of some of them:

Named trains that have stopped at Union Terminal

Name	Operators	Year begun	Year discontinued	Notes	References
Azalean	L & N	1937	1953
Buckeye	PRR	1957	1969
Cardinal	Amtrak	1991	Active service
Carolina Special	SOU	1911	1968	Inaugural service to CUT
Cavalier	N & W	1928	1966	Inaugural service to CUT
Cincinnati Limited	PRR, PC	1920	1971	Inaugural service to CUT
Cincinnati Mercury	NYC	1951	1957
Cincinnatian	B & O	1947	1971
Fast Flying Virginian	C & O	1889	1968	Inaugural service to CUT
Flamingo	L & N	1925	1968	Inaugural service to CUT
Florida Sunbeam	SOU	1936	1949
George Washington	C & O, Amtrak	1932	1972	Inaugural service to CUT
Great Lakes Limited	B & O	1929	1950	Inaugural service to CUT
Humming Bird	L & N	1947	1968
James Whitcomb Riley	NYC, PC, Amtrak	1941	1972
Metropolitan Special	B & O	1919	1971	Inaugural service to CUT
Michigan Special	NYC	1930	1958	Inaugural service to CUT
National Limited	B & O	1916	1971	Inaugural service to CUT
Night Express	B & O	1960	1967
Northern Arrow	PRR	1935	1961
Ohio State Limited	NYC, PC	1924	1967	Inaugural service to CUT
Pan-American	L & N	1921	1971	Inaugural service to CUT
Pocahontas	N & W	1926	1971	Inaugural service to CUT
Ponce de Leon	SOU	1924	1968	Inaugural service to CUT
Powhatan Arrow	N & W	1946	1969
Royal Palm	SOU		1970	Inaugural service to CUT
South Wind	L & N	1940	1971
Southland	L & N, PRR	1915	1957	Inaugural service to CUT
Sportsman	C & O	1930	1968	Inaugural service to CUT
Union	PRR	1933	1971
White City Special	CCC&StL			Inaugural service to CUT
Xplorer	NYC	1956	1957

What's Inside Union Terminal?

The City of Cincinnati owns the building, its grounds, and the parking lot. The train tracks are owned by a freight company called CSX Transportation. The city rents out the building mainly for Amtrak and the Cincinnati Museum Center.

The Cincinnati Museum Center is a group of five different museums and centers:

• The Cincinnati History Museum
• The Museum of Natural History & Science
• The Robert D. Lindner Family Omnimax Theater
• The Cincinnati History Library and Archives
• The Duke Energy Children's Museum

The terminal also has the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, places to eat, and spaces for events.

Visiting the Museum Center

All parts of the museum center are easy to get around for people using wheelchairs. The Amtrak station is also accessible. The main information desk helps with tickets, maps, and lost and found items.

There are gift shops in the Museum of Natural History and the History Library. You can also find several places to eat inside the terminal. Cup and Pint serves pizzas and coffee, while Nourish 513 has sandwiches and salads. The Rookwood tea room is now a Graeter's ice cream shop!

In 2014, the museum center worked with Google Cultural Institute to create a virtual tour of the museum. You can explore it online using Google Street View and see many artworks.

Building Design and Features

Art Deco Style

The company Fellheimer & Wagner designed Union Terminal. This building is considered their most important work. The lead architect, Fellheimer, was famous for designing train stations, like Grand Central Terminal.

The original plan for Union Terminal was more traditional, with Gothic arches and ceilings. But in 1930, the terminal company decided to hire Paul Philippe Cret as a design helper. He changed the design to a modern style, which we now call Art Deco. This new design was cheaper and had brighter, more colorful interiors.

Location and Outside Look

Cincinnati Union Terminal is in the Queensgate area, west of downtown Cincinnati. It's located east of the Gest Street rail yard and west of a large lawn and parking lot. The building is near Cincinnati Music Hall, another famous Cincinnati landmark.

When it opened in 1933, the terminal complex had 22 buildings and covered 287 acres. The main station building itself is huge, with 504,000 square feet of space.

The building is shaped like a "T" with a half-dome on top. It has five floors, but only two main levels: the track level and the station floor above it. This design made it easier to arrange the building and add cool architectural features. The station was designed so trains could "pull through" it, which was more efficient than other styles.

Union Terminal could handle 216 trains per day and 17,000 passengers. It had three lanes for cars, taxis, and buses to drive through ramps under the main rotunda. Passengers used ramps to get to the 1,600-foot-long platforms below the concourse.

Even in 1933, people thought it might be the last grand train station ever built.

The Front Lawn and Terrace

East of the station, there's a terrace with steps and a fountain. There are also parking lots around a grassy area.

The lawn used to be a city park called Lincoln Park. It was redesigned when the terminal was built to have simpler landscaping with trees and flower beds.

The fountain has water flowing down into a pool. It's made of concrete and green terrazzo.

There's also a large Art Deco sign on the grounds. It used to say "Cincinnati Museum Center," but after the 2018 renovation, it was changed back to "Cincinnati Union Terminal."

The Main Entrance

The main front of the building is 500 feet wide and is the most striking part. It's the only way passengers could enter. The center part is shaped like a half-circle with frosted windows. Below the windows is a long, shiny aluminum and glass marquee. Underneath this are nine aluminum doors that lead to the main rotunda.

The central arch of the main front was inspired by Helsinki Central Station in Finland.

A large clock is on the front of the building. It's 18 feet wide and weighs 5 tons! The hour and minute hands are very long. It has 52 glass panes, some red and some amber. The clock was restored during the 2016-2018 renovation.

The front also has two carvings by Maxfield Keck. One carving shows transportation, and the other shows commerce (business).

Gallery

• 

  Exterior clock

• 

  South buttress carving

• 

  North buttress carving

• 

  Detail of the north wing

• 

  Marquee

• 

  Main entry doors

Building Materials

The building has a steel frame with brick walls and concrete floors.

The entire front of the building is made of light-colored Indiana Limestone. You can even see fossils of ancient sea creatures in the stone! The entrance uses a dark granite called Morton Gneiss, which was popular in Art Deco buildings. The dome was originally covered with terra cotta, but it was replaced with aluminum in 1945.

Inside the Terminal

Unlike the simple outside, the inside of the building is full of bright, warm colors. These colors look even brighter with natural light during the day. Most of the metal inside, like doors and light fixtures, is made of aluminum.

The floors in the main areas have a cool pattern made of terrazzo (a mix of stone chips and cement) in shades of gray and rose, divided by brass strips. This pattern helped guide people through the building.

The building was designed so you couldn't see the heating or cooling units. Hot air was hidden behind light fixtures, and even the ramps were heated to keep the building warm.

The Rotunda

The main entrance leads to the Rotunda, a huge semi-circular room. It's 176 feet wide, 125 feet deep, and 106 feet tall (about ten stories high!). The walls are covered in red and yellow Verona marble, with dark red marble at the bottom. This marble is 150 million years old and has many fossilized skeletons visible!

The dome ceiling is covered with sound-absorbing plaster and has yellow and orange colors with silver strips. The room has many Art Deco details and colorful mosaic murals by Winold Reiss.

The Rotunda's central information desk used to be a newsstand and tobacco shop. It has a decorative sphere and a digital clock, which might have been one of the first digital clocks in a public space!

The northern wall used to have 18 ticket windows. The southern wall had a soda fountain and a drug store. The east wall had shops for clothes, books, and toys, plus a tea room and a small theater.

The Rotunda also has a cool secret: it's a whispering gallery. If you stand at certain spots on opposite sides of the room, you can whisper and hear each other clearly, even though you're 30 meters apart!

The Rotunda's semi-dome is the largest in the western hemisphere. It's 180 feet wide and 106 feet high.

The Train Concourse (Now Demolished)

The train concourse was a long room that used to be above the railroad tracks. It was demolished in 1974. It had 16 gates that led to stairs and ramps down to the platforms. The concourse was bright with tall windows and had the same marble pattern as the Rotunda.

This room was a waiting area with comfy seats. It also featured the famous Winold Reiss industrial murals and a large map mural. The map mural was destroyed when the concourse was torn down. A large clock from the concourse was saved and moved to a parking garage, and then later to the Museum Center.

Tower A

Tower A was a signal tower that controlled the train tracks. It's on the fourth and fifth floors of the station and offers great views of the rail yard. The room was soundproofed because of all the train noise. It had a huge machine with 187 levers that controlled the train switches. This was the largest machine of its kind at the time!

From 1989 to 2018, the Cincinnati Railroad Club used this space. They had exhibits and volunteers to teach people about the rail yard. The club plans to raise money to open the space more often for visitors.

Food and Drink Areas

The Rookwood tea room is decorated with beautiful Rookwood Pottery tiles. It's right off the Rotunda and is now a Graeter's ice cream parlor. It opened in 1933 for tea and snacks.

The south side of the main level has a kitchen, dining room, and lunchroom. The lunchroom, now called the Losantiville Dining Room, has yellow marble walls and a chocolate-brown ceiling. It features 22 murals depicting animals, fruits, and other foods. These murals were restored in the 2018 renovation.

Other Cool Interior Spaces

There's a small 118-seat theater at the entrance. It reopened around 1991 as the Scripps Howard Newsreel Theater. It shows free movies, old newsreels, and a video about the terminal's history. The theater has white and black marble walls. During the 2016-2018 renovation, the original seats were cleaned, and new sound and projection systems were installed.

The men's and women's waiting rooms had unique marble walls and special wood designs. The men's room had a railroad theme, while the women's lounge had panels of different types of wood.

The checking lobby is behind the Rotunda. This is where passengers used to check their bags. The walls here are decorated with two murals by Reiss that show the terminal being built and opened.

The president's office is round and has a fireplace made of Kasota stone. Above the fireplace is a map of the United States made from different types of wood, with each wood coming from the state it represents!

The terminal also used to have a drug store, beauty parlor, barber shop, clothing stores, a gift shop, and even a small hospital.

Original features

• 

  Vestibule

• 

  Men's Room

• 

  Dining Room entrance

• 

  Checking Lobby

• 

  Secretary's Office

• 

  President's Office

Modern and restored spaces

• 

  Cincinnati Dining Room

• 

  Rookwood tea room

• 

  Public Landing recreation

• 

  Cincinnati in Motion exhibit

• 

  Checking Lobby

• 

  Women's Room

Artworks and Murals

Cincinnati Union Terminal is filled with amazing art. When it opened, it had 23 mosaic murals, covering 18,150 square feet! This was the largest collection of non-religious mosaics in the United States in 1933.

Most of the art was created by a German-American artist named Winold Reiss. He designed and made two huge mosaic murals for the Rotunda, two for the baggage checking lobby, two for the train boards, and 16 smaller murals showing local industries for the train concourse. He also made a large world map mural. Reiss spent about two years creating these artworks.

Rotunda Murals

The Rotunda murals are enormous, measuring 105 feet by 22 feet. The south mural shows the history of the United States, from Native Americans to the industrial age. It even features Native Americans from the Blackfoot Confederacy, a group Reiss spent time with.

The north mural, on the right side of the Rotunda, shows the history of Cincinnati. It features explorers, farmers, shipbuilding, and industry. You can see Fort Washington in the background and how shipping on the Ohio River changed over time. The mural also shows Reiss's idea of what the city would look like in the future.

World Map Mural

The world map mural was 70 feet by 16 feet and weighed 22.4 tons! It had five decorative clocks showing different time zones in the United States. The United States was in the center, with major cities spelled out in the terminal's Art Deco style. Cincinnati was spelled the largest.

Sadly, this mural was destroyed when the train concourse was torn down in 1974 because it was too big and expensive to save. However, Reiss's original study (a practice painting) for the mural still exists and is now at the Cincinnati Museum Center.

Industrial Murals

Reiss also created 16 murals that showed different industries in Cincinnati. These were in the train concourse. When the concourse was demolished in 1974, 14 of these murals were moved. Five of them are now at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, and nine are at the Duke Energy Convention Center. Two of the murals stayed in a part of Union Terminal that still exists.

Construction Murals

Two more Reiss murals are in the checking lobby. They show seven important people who helped build the terminal. The south mural features Cincinnati's mayor, city manager, and the Union Terminal Company president from 1933. The north mural shows the mayor, city manager, chief engineer, and the founder of the Union Terminal Company from 1929.

Other Artworks

Reiss also made two murals for the train concourse, above the arrivals and departures boards. These murals were saved from demolition and are now near the entrance to the Cincinnati History Library. One shows a train arriving, and the other shows a train departing.

Pierre Bourdelle, a French artist, also created art for the terminal. He painted over 5,000 square feet of art, including a jungle-themed mural for the women's lounge. He also painted 22 murals for the lunchroom, which show animals, fruits, and vegetables. These murals were removed for cleaning and restoration and were re-hung in 2018.

History of the Terminal

Building the Terminal

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Cincinnati was a big center for train travel. But the city had five different train stations, and they were often crowded or flooded by the Ohio River. So, railroad leaders wanted to build one big station away from the river.

It took a long time to agree on a plan because of World War I and an economic downturn. Finally, in July 1927, seven railroad companies and the city agreed to build a "union station" (a station used by many different companies). They chose a spot in the West End neighborhood.

The architectural firm Fellheimer & Wagner was hired in June 1928. Their first designs were more traditional, but they changed to the modern Art Deco style between 1931 and 1932. Art Deco was chosen because it was cheaper and looked more lively and modern.

Construction began in 1928. Workers had to reshape the land, moving a lot of dirt. They also built mail buildings, an engine terminal, a power house, and bridges. Building the terminal itself started in August 1929, right before the Great Depression. Even with the Depression, construction finished six months early! The total cost was $41.5 million.

The terminal opened for emergency use on March 19, 1933, because a flood forced other stations to close. The official opening was on March 31, 1933.

Decline and Abandonment

Union Terminal opened during the Great Depression, when fewer people were traveling by train. So, it wasn't used much at first. By 1939, some newspapers called it a "white elephant" (something big and expensive but not very useful).

It got busy again during World War II, but then train travel declined in the 1950s and 1960s. More people started using cars and airplanes. In the late 1950s, the Union Terminal Company looked for other ways to use the building. In 1968, the Cincinnati Science Center opened there, but it closed in 1970 due to money problems.

Closing and Partial Demolition

In 1971, Amtrak took over most passenger train services in the U.S. They cut back Cincinnati's train service, and the terminal was scheduled to close in October 1972. This made people worried about the building's future.

On October 11, 1972, the terminal was nominated to be a National Historic Landmark to help protect it. The last passenger train left on October 28, 1972. Amtrak then moved to a smaller station.

The Union Terminal Company sold the building to Southern Railway, which wanted to expand its freight operations. Southern Railway planned to tear down the train concourse to make room for taller freight cars.

People in Cincinnati protested to save the terminal. In May 1973, the city council voted to protect the building as a Local Historic Landmark. In 1974, Southern Railway tore down most of the train concourse. Before this, the city saved 14 of the Reiss industrial murals and moved them to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. A group called "Save the Terminal" raised money to save the art, but they couldn't save the large map mural, which was destroyed.

In 1975, the City of Cincinnati bought the terminal and looked for new tenants. A developer proposed turning it into a shopping mall called "Oz" or "Land of Oz." The mall opened in 1980 with 40 stores. At its busiest, it had 7,800 to 8,000 visitors a day. But an economic recession in the early 1980s hurt the mall, and it closed in 1984.

Museum and Return of Trains

In the early 1980s, the Cincinnati Historical Society and Cincinnati Museum of Natural History needed more space. They decided to move into Union Terminal together. To pay for the renovations, voters in Hamilton County approved a $33 million bond.

The renovation turned underground spaces and old taxi/bus ramps into museum exhibits. The main concourse was restored, and the theater was fixed up. The entrance to the old train concourse became the Omnimax theater.

The museum opened on November 10, 1990. It included the Cincinnati Historical Society Library, Cincinnati History Museum, Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, and the Omnimax Theater. It quickly became one of the biggest attractions in the area.

The museum renovations also allowed Amtrak to bring train service back to Union Terminal in 1991. In 1995, the different parts of the museum officially joined to form the Cincinnati Museum Center.

In July 2016, the museum closed for a huge $228 million renovation of the entire building. It reopened on November 17, 2018. In January 2019, the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center also opened as a new museum inside the terminal.

See also

In Spanish: Cincinnati Union Terminal para niños