October 27, 1907: Union Station Opens In Washington

October 27, 1907: Union Station opens in Washington, D.C., 6 blocks north of the U.S. Capitol, replacing 2 earlier stations. It hosts service for the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (a.k.a. the B&O).

The New Jersey Avenue Station opened in 1851, 2 blocks north of the U.S. Capitol Building. It was the city's terminal for the B&O. The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station opened in 1872, 5 blocks west of the Capitol. It was the city's terminal for the railroad of the same name, and also for the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was there that President James Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881.

Both stations were phased out when Union Station opened. The Senate Fountain now stands on the site of New Jersey Avenue Station, and the National Gallery of Art, a unit of the Smithsonian Institution, is on the site of the Baltimore and Potomac Station.

In 1971, in the wake of the bankruptcies of most of America's passenger railroads, it becomes the headquarters of Amtrak. In 1976, Washington's subway system, the Metro, opened, with Union Station being a stop on its Red Line. In 1988, a hall was converted into the District of Columbia's premier upscale shopping center.

In 1984, MARC (Maryland Area Rail Commuter) began operating there, providing service to Baltimore, and to western Maryland, all the way to Martinsburg, West Virginia. In 1992, VRE (Virginia Railway Express) began service to Manassas and Fredericksburg, both sites of Civil War battles. In 2012, Greyhound moved its intercity bus service to a station in the Station's parking deck.

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October 27, 1907 was a Sunday. Baseball season was over. Pro football and hockey records from this era were sketchy. Pro basketball did not exist. So there were no scores on this historic day.

June 17, 1902: The 20th Century Limited Begins Operation

June 17, 1902: The New York Central Railroad begins the 1st run of the 20th Century Limited, a new train service from New York to Chicago. It becomes known as the fastest train in the Eastern United States.

The luxury train left Grand Central Terminal in New York, went up the Hudson River to Albany, then turned west, crossed New York State to Buffalo, then hugged the coast of Lake Erie, stopping in Cleveland, and in Toledo for a connection to Detroit, and terminated at Chicago's LaSalle Street Station. The 1st one completed its run in 20 hours, 4 hours faster than any previous New York-to-Chicago train. The introduction of Art Deco diesel cars in 1938 allowed them to cut the run to 16 hours.

Starting in 1938, the timetable was as follows: Leave New York at 5:00 PM; Harmon, New York at 5:46; Albany at 7:39; Syracuse at 10:05; Buffalo at 12:25 AM; Toledo at 3:06; Englewood, on the South Side of Chicago, at 7:26; and La Salle Street at 8:00 -- with the switch from Eastern Time to Central Time, 16 hours exactly.

The return trip: Leave Chicago at 3:00 PM, Englewood at 3:10, Toledo at 7:30, Buffalo at 10:01, Syracuse at 12:21 AM, Albany at 5:02, Harmon at 7:00, and Grand Central at 8:00.

The 20th Century Limited was the setting for a Broadway play in 1932, Twentieth Century, which was adapted into a film in 1934. and then into a Broadway musical in 1978, On the Twentieth Century. The train also figured prominently as a setting for major scenes in both Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 North by Northwest and George Roy Hill's 1973 The Sting -- which incorrectly had the train arrive in Chicago at night, not in the morning as it did in reality.

The increasing prevalence of the automobile ruined the passenger rail industry. The New York Central, and its competitor, the Pennsylvania Railroad, with its New York Penn Station-to-Chicago Union Station-running Broadway Limited, went bankrupt in the 1960s.

On December 2, 1967, at 6:00 PM, a 20th Century Limited left Grand Central Terminal's Track 34 for the last time. It was only due to the nostalgia factor that it was even half-full. As always, carnations were given to men boarding the train, and perfume and flowers to women. The next day, it arrived at LaSalle Street Station in Chicago, 9 hours 50 minutes late due to a freight derailment near Conneaut, Ohio, which forced a slow rerouting over the parallel Nickel Plate railroad freight line.

The competing railroads were merged in 1968, becoming Penn Central. In 1976, it was still bankrupt, and reorganized into Conrail. In 1971, Amtrak took over national passenger service. In 1975, Amtrak copied the 20th Century Limited, and created the Lake Shore Limited, running it from Grand Central to Chicago Union. In 1991, Penn Station became its New York terminus.

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June 17, 1902 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Giants were swept in a doubleheader by the Boston Beaneaters, 6-3 and 13-2 at the South End Grounds in Boston. The Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at National League Park (later Baker Bowl) in Philadelphia. The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911.

* The Cleveland Bronchos swept a doubleheader from the Boston Americans, 7-3 and 4-3 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. Addie Joss beat Cy Young in the nightcap. The Americans became the Red Sox in 1908. The next season, the Bronchos renamed themselves for their best hitter and 2nd baseman, and even named him their manager: Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie. They became the Cleveland Naps in 1903, the Cleveland Indians in 1915, and the Cleveland Guardians in 2022.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 4-0 at Bennett Park in Detroit. Win Mercer pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-2 at at South Side Park in Chicago.

* Rain stopped the game between the St. Louis Browns and the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park in Baltimore, ending it 2-2 after 11 innings at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The Orioles folded at the end of the season, and were replaced by the New York team that would become the Yankees in 1913. After the 1953 season, the Browns moved, becoming... the Baltimore Orioles.

* Not scheduled for that day: The Chicago Orphans, the Cincinnati Reds, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Chicago team, formerly known as the White Stockings and, for their youth, as the Colts, had long been led by 1st baseman and manager Adrian Constantine Anson. He was known as "Cap," for "Captain," until he got older, and became known as "Pop." He retired after the 1897 season, and the team became known as the "Orphans," because "they missed their Pop." They were renamed the Chicago Cubs in 1903.

May 16, 1925: Chicago Union Station Opens

May 16, 1925: Chicago Union Station -- now its official name, not just "Union Station" -- opens, replacing an earlier station that had been on the site since 1881. It is the most important ground transportation hub in the Midwestern United States.

The station is to the west of the Chicago River, across from the area ringed by elevated railways and thus known as "The Loop." This has led to an oddity: There is no elevated, or "L," station at Union Station. The closest is 3 blocks away, a Blue Line station at Clinton, under the Eisenhower Expressway.

Originally, the station was served by 4 railroads. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran to the East, including the Broadway Limited to and from Pennsylvania Station in New York. To the west ran the Chicago and Alton Railroad; the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, a.k.a. The Milwaukee Road; and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, a.k.a. the Burlington Route.

The Alton Railroad went down through Illinois, and into Missouri at St. Louis, then crossed Missouri to Kansas City. The Burlington Route extended as far west as Denver, and featured the Zephyr train, predecessor of today's Amtrak California Zephyr to Emeryville, in the East Bay near Oakland. As its name suggests, the Milwaukee Road went north to Milwaukee, then west to St. Paul, accessing Minneapolis, before heading across the northern plains and the Rocky Mountains to Seattle.

The Great Hall

As with all the other great rail terminals in America, the post-World War II rise of the automobile hurt its usage. In 1947, the Alton Railroad was merged into the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. In 1972, it was bought by the Illinois Central Railroad. In 1998, the Illinois Central was bought by the Canadian National Railway.

In 1968, the Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the New York Central Railroad, becoming Penn Central. In 1976, it was still bankrupt, and reorganized into Conrail. In 1970, the Burlington Route merged with the Northern Pacific Railway and the Great Northern Railway, to form the Burlington Northern Railroad. In 1996, the BN merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF). In 1986, the Milwaukee Road was bought by the Canadian Pacific Railway. By that point, all of these railroads were freight only.

In 1971, Amtrak took over national passenger service. In 1975, Amtrak copied the New York Central's 20th Century Limited, which had run from Grand Central Terminal to Chicago's LaSalle Street Station from 1902 to 1967, and created the Lake Shore Limited, running it from Grand Central to Chicago Union. In 1991, Penn Station became its New York terminus.

Metra, short for "Metropolitan Rail," took over commuter service in Chicago on June 8, 1984. Its trains  leave Union Station and go as far southwest as Joliet, as far west as Aurora, as far northwest as Fox Lake, and as far north as Kenosha, Wisconsin. It operates commuter lines out of other Chicago stations as well: Ogilvie Transportation Center (just 2 blocks north of Union Station), the new LaSalle Street Station, and Millennium Station (formerly Randolph Street Station). 

Chicago Union Station has proven to be a popular filming location for movies and television, including such films as The Sting in 1973, Silver Streak in 1976, The Untouchables in 1987, and Man of Steel in 2013. Renovations were made in 1990 and 2019. As of 2022, it is the 4th-busiest train station in the U.S. The 3 ahead of it are all in New York City: Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, and Jamaica Station in Queens.

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May 16, 1925 was a Saturday. It rained in Chicago the day that Union Station opened, and so the Chicago White Sox and the Philadelphia Athletics could not play at Comiskey Park. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 15. The A's swept, 9-7 and 11-5. The Chicago Cubs lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-5 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

These other baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 12-3 at Navin Field (later Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Babe Ruth was ill, and Lou Gehrig was still on the way up, and each had yet to make his major league season debut. But Bob Meusel hit 2 home runs, and Aaron Ward added 1. Urban Shocker went the distance for the win. Ty Cobb, by this point also the manager of the Tigers, went 1-for-3.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were known during Wilbert Robinson's managing, 1914 to 1931) beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-4 at Ebbets Field. Zack Wheat went 1-for-4. Rogers Hornsby went 4-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs, to no avail.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Boston Braves, 7-5 at Braves Field in Boston. The Pirates scored 3 runs in the top of the 10th, and the Braves could score only 1 in the bottom half.

* The Washington Senators beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-2 at League Park in Cleveland. Walter Johnson went the distance for the win. Goose Goslin hit a home run. Tris Speaker, manager of the Indians, did not put himself into the game.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Red Sox, 10-7 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Gene Robertson hit 2 home runs, including a 3-run homer that won the game in the bottom of the 10th inning. George Sisler went 1-for-5.

Also in the world of sports, Nílton Santos was born. Perhaps the greatest defender in the history of Brazilian soccer, he played for Rio de Janeiro team Botafogo, whose stadium is named for him. He helped Brazil win the 1958 and 1962 World Cups.

May 1, 1971: Amtrak Begins Service

May 1, 1971: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, popularly known as Amtrak, begins operation. It takes over intercity passenger rail service from all other railroads, most of them bankrupt.

There had been the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad; the New York Central Railroad; the Pennsylvania Railroad; the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway; the Southern Railroad; the Seaboard Line; the Illinois Central Railroad; the Rock Island Line, the Burlington Northern; the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe; the Union Pacific, the Central Pacific, and the Southern Pacific; and many others.

But with the growth of the automobile industry, the Interstate Highway System, and the airline industry, railroads lost their market, and most of them went bankrupt. On February 1, 1968, the New York Central and the Pennsylvania, both bankrupt, merged to form the Penn Central. That went bankrupt, too, on June 21, 1970, the biggest bankruptcy in American history until Enron in 2001.

Amtrak is better than bus service on Greyhound. But it is flawed. There are lots of places it doesn't go, including a few big cities like Nashville and Columbus. The food is good in the dining car, but on short trips, the fast food they have is barely tolerable, partly due to being over-microwaved: By the time it cools off, you're at your destination. And in cities with commuter rail lines, Amtrak has precedence, so the commuter lines get backed up. This gets particularly bad at Pennsylvania Station in New York, with residual effects on New Jersey Transit and its Northeast Corridor stations.

In 1976, Conrail took over freight service from the remaining railroads. In the 1987 film Planes, Trains and Automobiles, neither Amtrak nor Conrail wanted their name on the train that breaks down, so the made-up name "Contrack" was used.

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May 1, 1971 was a Saturday. This was also the day the film Billy Jack premiered, and Marvel Comics issued their Spider-Man story about drug use. I have separate entries for those events.

These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Milwaukee Brewers, 1-0 at Yankee Stadium. Lew Krausse Jr., son of another major league pitcher, outpitched Stan Bahnsen. Tommy Harper's 8th inning home run provided the only home run of the game.

* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 3-1 at the Astrodome in Houston. Larry Dierker outpitched Tom Seaver.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI. Rod Carew did not play. Luis Aparicio (not really known as a slugger, or as a Red Sock) and Reggie Smith hit home runs in defeat. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-4.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Washington Senators, 5-3 at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-5 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Hank Aaron hit the 601st and 602nd home runs of his career.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Diego Padres, 5-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Gene Alley singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning. Willie Stargell went 3-for-5. Roberto Clemente was a late defensive replacement, and went 0-for-1.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-2 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 1-for-3 with a walk. Johnny Bench went 1-for-4. Willie Mays only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Fergie Jenkins outpitched Rick Wise, although Wise hit a home run. Ernie Banks went 1-for-2 with a walk. Billy Williams went 3-for-3 with 2 homers and 4 RBIs.

* The Montreal Expos and the St. Louis Cardinals were tied, 2-2 after 7 innings, when the game at Busch Memorial Stadium was called due to rain.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-3 with a walk. Frank Robinson went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The California Angels beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium). Andy Messersmith went the distance, while Dean Chance got knocked out of the box in the 2nd inning. Al Kaline went 0-for-2, then was hit by a pitch and replaced by a pinch-runner.

* And the Cleveland Indians beat the Oakland Athletics, 2-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Steve Dunning outpitched Diego Seguí. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4.

Football was out of season. The NBA Championship had been decided the day before, as the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Baltimore Bullets 118-106 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Arena) to complete a 4-game sweep of the Finals. The ABA Playoffs were between the Divisional Finals and the Finals. The Utah Stars would win, defeating the Kentucky Colonels.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs were in the Semifinals. The Montreal Canadiens had eliminated the Minnesota North Stars 2 days earlier, and the Chicago Black Hawks would eliminate the New York Rangers in Game 7 the next night. The Canadiens would win the Cup over the Hawks in 7 games.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat Staffordshire team Stoke City, 1-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury. That should have been their last game of the Football League season. However, an earlier game against their North London arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, had been postponed, and would be played 2 days later. This allowed Arsenal to win the League title at the home of their arch-rivals.

February 2, 1913: Grand Central Terminal Opens

February 2, 1913: Grand Central Terminal opens in Midtown Manhattan, at 42nd Street and Park Avenue. It replaces the former Grand Central Depot on the site, which had been in place since 1871.

Ever since, people have called it "Grand Central Station," but this is incorrect: It has always been officially named "Grand Central Terminal."

It became home to the New York Central Railroad, including its New York-to-Chicago train, the Twentieth Century Limited. It also became home to the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad.

The New York Central tracks running under Park Avenue, including 49th Street, allowed for special access from track level to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, which opened in 1931. (The previous hotel by that name, at 34th Street and 5th Avenue, was torn down to make way for the Empire State Building, also opening in 1931.) From 1933 to 1945, this enabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt to take the New York Central from his hometown of Hyde Park, New York to Grand Central, and to be moved from the station to the hotel without the general public seeing his disability.

Grand Central became a major intercity conduit, and also a major commuter center, as it not only took people who lived in the Hudson Valley and Connecticut to their workplaces in Manhattan, but also served as an important subway junction, as the IRT's Lexington Avenue Line (today's 4, 5 and 6 Trains) and its Flushing Line (today's 7 Train) intersect there. A shuttle (now an S Train) connected the terminal with Times Square, 4 blocks to the west (Park Avenue to Madison, to 5th, to 6th, to 7th).

In 1963, the 808-foot Pan Am Building opened, between the station and the old New York Central Building. It was not popular: If anything, it was considered "too modern." In 1992, Pan American Airways went out of business, and the skyscraper became the MetLife Building. The New York Central Building, which opened in 1929, was renamed the New York General Building in 1958 and the Helmsley Building in 1978.

The New York Central Railroad went bankrupt, and in 1968 it merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad to form the Penn Central Corporation. By this point, a plan to build a skyscraper around the station, including demolishing the 42nd Street facade, had been released to the public.

The public hated it. No one more than former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was a charter member of the New York City Landmarks Commission, formed in the wake of the destruction of the old Pennsylvania Station in 1963. She said:

Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud monuments, until there will be nothing left of all her history and beauty to inspire our children? If they are not inspired by the past of our city, where will they find the strength to fight for her future? Americans care about their past, but for short term gain they ignore it and tear down everything that matters. Maybe... this is the time to take a stand, to reverse the tide, so that we won't all end up in a uniform world of steel and glass boxes.

A lawsuit was filed, and finally decided in 1978, in favor of the City. The station would not be demolished. But it needed a major renovation and cleanup. It got them, but at a price. Not just an enormous sum of money: Amtrak, formed in 1971 to take the place of the bankrupt passenger railroads, moved all of its intercity service out of New York to the new Penn Station in 1991.

In 1983, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a State of New York agency that already ran the City's Subway system, took over the commuter operations out of Grand Central, and formed the Metro-North Commuter Railroad. It has 3 lines: The Hudson Line goes up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie, the Harlem line goes up the other side of Westchester County, hugging the State Line with Connecticut; and the New Haven Line, in cooperation with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, goes up Long Island Sound, into Connecticut, to New Haven, with branches to New Canaan, Danbury and Waterbury. Grand Central is 2nd only to Penn Station as America's busiest passenger railroad hub.

In 2008, work began on Grand Central Madison, allowing for the Terminal to finally be connected with the Long Island Railroad, to ease commuter congestion at Penn Station. It is scheduled to open in 2023. (UPDATE: It did, on January 25.)

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February 2, 1913 was a Sunday. Baseball and football were out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. There was professional hockey, including the National Hockey Association, from whence 1 surviving team, the Montreal Canadiens, came. But the NHA had a rule against playing on Sundays, so there were no scores on this historic day.