The Waiting Room

Your audio tour of Union Depot continues in the Waiting Room. This is the third of five segments on a self-guided walking tour that takes you through this historic, fully restored St. Paul landmark. Feel free to pause while you’re in the Waiting Room to get a closer look at the architectural details or the public art installations. There’s a lot to see. And note, there’s free wi-fi here too.

To begin, look around. Are you in a room so big it reminds you of a football field? That’s the Waiting Room. It’s 300 feet long and 70 feet wide. There’s an acre — 38,000 square feet — of decorative ceiling overhead. Sixty-three arched steel windows encircle the space for beautiful natural light in any season.

At its peak — in the late 1920s and mid-1940s — more than 250 trains a day traveled through Union Depot, and passengers waited here before walking down to one of the 21 tracks in service. As part of the restoration project, the one remaining original staircase which served tracks 1 and 2 was moved from where it originally stood near Kellogg Boulevard to Gate B. A small museum area was created near Gate B, as you enter, it’s worth walking over and exploring. Make sure to go through the second set of doors to the staircase and check out the unique puzzle-shaped tiles on the stairs. Gate A provides access to local and regional bus service in an area of the train deck that has been modified to accommodate buses. In between the gates on the wall, you’ll see wooden cabinets called track indicator cabinets that once displayed arrival and departure times. They’ve been restored and updated with electronic screens.

A part of Union Depot’s history includes the years the facility — specifically this part of the building — was closed to the public. During that time, which began in 1971, the United States Postal Service bought parts of the train deck and building. They used the train deck for mail shipping and receiving first by train and later by truck. The Post Office used the Waiting Room for storage. This phase of ownership continued until 2010 when the Postal Service moved its operations to Eagan. When the restoration process began in 2011, a major focus was returning this space to its original elegance and restoring the train deck.

As you move through the Waiting Room today, note the public art installations as well as the many architectural details. For instance, where the walls meet the ceiling is a decorative element known as a frieze. It depicts the early history of transportation from ox cart to steam locomotive. About two-thirds of the way to Gate C, you’ll note the transition to electric locomotive on the train.

And if your eyes are really sharp, as you study the ceiling you might spot a butterfly on one of the rosettes. There are nearly 800 rosettes in the Waiting Room and Head House, and all of them were carefully cleaned and repainted during the renovation process. On the walls alone, 24 layers of paint and three layers of primer were removed in the Head House before new paint was applied.

Now take a moment, and move to the far end of the Waiting Room near Gate C, closest to the river. If you look across the Mississippi, you can see how high the water rose in the historic flood of 1965 — 26 feet. Gate C provides access to the Amtrak platform and is unlocked when passenger trains arrive and depart. Amtrak returned to Union Depot in 2014 with daily service on the Empire Builder, which connects Chicago to the Pacific Northwest.

Other rail service in the area includes three Class 1 railroads, BNSF Railway, Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific. They use the tracks to the east and south of Union Depot’s 33-acre property. About five percent of the nation’s freight moves through on their lines. On the Union Depot website, there are two cameras streaming live video of the railways. Go to uniondepot.org, and with a laptop or desktop computer, look for the Train Cams Live Video button on the top of your screen.

Thanks for touring the Union Depot Waiting Room. This space is one of four indoor venues for public and private events. It provides banquet seating for up to 1,200 people and a reception area for 3,000 guests. The Waiting Room has been used for concerts, art exhibitions, wedding receptions and more.

The next segment of the audio tour starts at the Kellogg Entry. When you’re ready, move in that direction, past Gate A towards the concourse.