Alexandria Union Station - Alexandria, Virginia
N 38° 48.391 W 077° 03.738
18S E 320928 N 4297326
The Alexandria Union Station is significant as the most visible remaining example of the dominant passenger and freight transportation system in the City of Alexandria between 1851 and the 1930s.
Waymark Code: WM5R7M
Location: Virginia, United States
Date Posted: 02/05/2009
Views: 20
The ‘Historic Alexandria Quarterly’ (
visit link) contains an article ‘The Alexandria Union Station’, by Al Cox, AIA in 1996; it contains a large quantity of information on the station, of which this is a small excerpt:
The Alexandria Union Station is significant as the most visible remaining example of the dominant passenger and freight transportation system in the City of Alexandria between 1851 and the 1930s.
New iron bridges were constructed over King Street and Commonwealth Avenue in 1903-4 and the Alexandria Union Station, costing $62,020.55, was opened for service on September 15, 1905 (Valuation Docket no. 372, p. 239). A new freight station, costing $25,086.11, was built adjacent to the new passenger station on the east side of the tracks. The freight station was demolished in the early 1980s for construction of the present Metro station. The station was operated as a joint facility serving C&O, Southern and RF&P trains until the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) took over these routes in 1971. In 1991, the CSX Corporation, the parent company of the RF&P Railway, split off its real estate holdings in this area and the RF&P Corporation was formed to manage and develop the real estate, of which the Potomac Yard and Alexandria’s Union Station are a part, while ownership of the track is retained by CSX.
The original designer is presently unknown and it is assumed that the station was designed and drawn by railroad employees in-house. Prints of the original construction drawings are stamped “Office of Chief Eng. M.W., Pennsylvania Railroad, Philadelphia, Pa, Original on File”. Copies of the prints are available at the City of Alexandria Library, Lloyd House Architectural Drawing collection. Similar station designs by the Pennsylvania Railroad have been discovered in Chester, Irwin and Duncannon, Pennsylvania as well as Elizabeth, New Jersey. The one story brick station consists of the original main passenger depot and original baggage building, separated by a 20’ wide open breezeway passage and connected by a 370 foot long shed-roofed loggia on the east side, adjacent to the tracks. Both buildings still serve their original function.