Baltimore Penn Station

Baltimore Penn Station
Amtrak station MARC commuter rail station Baltimore Light Rail tram stop
Exterior of Penn Station
General information
Location	1515 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland
Coordinates	39.3074°N 76.6156°W / 39.3074; -76.6156
Owned by	Amtrak
Line(s)	Amtrak:   Acela   Cardinal   Carolinian   Crescent   Northeast Regional   Palmetto   Silver Meteor   Silver Star   Vermonter MARC:   Penn Line Light Rail:   Light RailLink
Connections	3, 11, 61, 64
Construction
Accessible	Yes
Other information
Station code	BAL
Passengers
2008	1,020,304  4%
Services
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Boston South Greenbush, Old Colony, and Fairmount Lines Back Bay Inland Route Boston to Route 128 Boston to Route 128 Ruggles Forest Hills Hyde Park Franklin/Foxboro Line and Fairmount Line Readville Route 128 Route 128 to Providence Route 128 to Providence Canton Junction Stoughton Branch Sharon Framingham Secondary Mansfield Middleboro Subdivision Attleboro East Junction Branch South Attleboro East Providence Branch MA RI Providence and Worcester RR Pawtucket/​Central Falls Providence Providence to New London Providence to New London T. F. Green Airport Seaview Railroad Wickford Junction Kingston Westerly RI CT Mystic Groton Wharf Branch Norwich and Worcester Railroad New England Central Railroad New London New London to New Haven New London to New Haven Valley Railroad Old Saybrook Westbrook Clinton Madison Guilford Branford Steam Railroad Branford Air Line New Haven–Springfield Line New Haven State Street New Haven New Haven to Stamford New Haven to Stamford West Haven Milford Waterbury Branch Stratford Bridgeport Fairfield Metro Fairfield Southport Green's Farms Westport East Norwalk Danbury Branch South Norwalk Rowayton Darien Noroton Heights New Canaan Branch Stamford Stamford to New York City Stamford to New York City Old Greenwich Riverside Cos Cob Greenwich CT NY Port Chester Rye Harrison Mamaroneck Larchmont New Rochelle New Haven Line Oak Point Link New York Connecting Railroad LIRR Main Line East Side Access Lower Montauk Branch LIRR Main Line New York New York City to Newark New York City to Newark Empire Corridor NY NJ CSX River Subdivision NJ Transit Secaucus Junction Waterfront Connection Kearny Connection Newark Penn Station Newark to Metropark Newark to Metropark Raritan Valley Line / Lehigh Line Newark Liberty Int'l Airport North Elizabeth Elizabeth Staten Island Railway Linden Linden Industrial Track Rahway North Jersey Coast Line Metropark Metropark to Trenton Metropark to Trenton Port Reading Secondary Metuchen Edison New Brunswick Millstone Branch Jersey Avenue Amboy Secondary Princeton Junction Princeton Branch Hamilton Trenton Trenton to Philadelphia Trenton to Philadelphia NJ PA Trenton Cutoff / NJT Morrisville Yard Fairless Branch Levittown Bristol Croydon Eddington Cornwells Heights Torresdale Bustleton Branch Holmesburg Junction Tacony Bridesburg Atlantic City Line North Philadelphia SEPTA Main Line Chestnut Hill West Line CSX CSX Keystone Corridor Zoo Junction Philadelphia–30th Street  Philadelphia to Wilmington  Philadelphia to Wilmington West Chester Line Philadelphia Subdivision Airport Line Darby Curtis Park Sharon Hill Folcroft Glenolden Norwood Prospect Park Ridley Park Crum Lynne Eddystone Chester T.C. Highland Avenue Chester Secondary Marcus Hook PA DE Claymont Shellpot Branch Wilmington Wilmington to Baltimore Wilmington to Baltimore Philadelphia Subdivision Shellpot Branch Churchmans Crossing Delmarva Secondary Newark, DE DE MD Port Road Branch Perryville Aberdeen Edgewood Martin State Airport Port of Baltimore Baltimore Baltimore to BWI Airport Baltimore to BWI Airport West Baltimore Halethorpe Camden Line BWI Airport BWI Airport to Washington BWI Airport to Washington Odenton Bowie State Pope's Creek Subdivision Seabrook New Carrollton Landover Subdivision Alexandria Extension MD DC Camden Line Brunswick Line Washington, D.C. RF&P Subdivision

Pennsylvania Station (generally referred to as Penn Station) is the main train station in Baltimore, Maryland. Designed by New York architect Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison (1872–1938), it was constructed in 1911 in the Beaux-Arts style of architecture for the Pennsylvania Railroad. It is located at 1515 N. Charles Street, on a raised "island" of sorts between two open trenches, one for the Jones Falls Expressway and the other the tracks of the Northeast Corridor. The Mount Vernon neighborhood lies to the south, and Station North is to the north. Penn Station is about a mile and a half north of downtown and the Inner Harbor. The station was originally known as Union Station (because it was served by both Pennsylvania Railroad and Western Maryland Railway), but was renamed to match other Pennsylvania Stations in 1928.

Both the northern and southern Northeast Corridor (NEC) approaches into the station are tunneled. The two-track Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel (B&P Tunnel), which opened in 1873, constitutes the southern approach. At 7,660 feet (about 1.5 miles) in length, it is one of the worst bottlenecks on the NEC since the maximum speeds for trains through the tunnel is only 30mph. The northern approach for Penn Station is carried through the Union Tunnel, which has a single-track bore and a double-track bore. The Union Tunnel was opened in 1873 and has been upgraded since, and is not as bad a chokepoint as the B&P tunnel, since it has two bores and lacks the sharp curves and steep grades that its opposite to the south has.

Penn Station is served by Amtrak, MARC, and the Maryland Transit Administration's light rail system. It is the eighth busiest rail station in the United States by number of passengers served.

Current and prior services

As of January, 2007, Penn Station is served by both MARC and Amtrak trains. MARC offers service between Washington, DC and Perryville, MD. Amtrak Regional trains from Penn Station serve destinations along the Northeast Corridor and in Virginia between Boston, and Newport News, VA, including New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, DE, Washington, and Richmond. Other long distance trains from the station serve:

• St. Albans, Vermont
• Charlottesville, Virginia
• Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina
• Atlanta, Georgia
• New Orleans, Louisiana
• Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and Miami, Florida
• Huntington, West Virginia
• Cincinnati, Ohio
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Chicago, Illinois

Previous Amtrak trains in the 1970s and 1980s also offered service to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, St. Louis, and Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, these services have since been discontinued over the past 30 years.

Prior to Amtrak's creation on May 1, 1971, Penn Station served as the main Baltimore station for its original owner, the Pennsylvania Railroad, though passenger trains of the Western Maryland Railway also used Penn Station as well. Until the late-1960s, the Pennsylvania Railroad also operated long-distance trains over its historic Northern Central Railway line from Penn Station to Harrisburg and beyond, such as "The General" to Chicago, the "Spirit of St. Louis" to its Missouri namesake, and the "Buffalo Day Express" and overnight "Northern Express" between Washington, DC, and Buffalo, New York. As late as 1956, this route also hosted the "Liberty Limited" to Chicago and the "Dominion Limited" to Toronto, Canada. The Baltimore Light Rail now operates over much of the Northern Central Railway's right of way in Baltimore and Baltimore County; however, the spur connecting Penn Station to this right of way is not the route originally taken by Northern Central trains.

The station's use as a Western Maryland station stop allowed passengers from Penn Station to ride directly to various Maryland towns such as Westminster, Hagerstown, and Cumberland. Passenger service on the Western Maryland ended in 1958.

The "Male/Female" sculpture controversy

In 2004, the City of Baltimore, through its public arts program, commissioned noted sculptor Jonathan Borofsky to create a sculpture as the centerpiece of a re-designed plaza in front of Penn Station. His work, a 51-foot (15.5 m)-tall aluminum statue entitled "Male/Female", has generated considerable controversy ever since. Its defenders cite the contemporary imagery and artistic expression as complementing an urban landscape, while opponents criticize what they decry as a clash with Penn Station's Beaux-Arts architecture, detracting from its classic lines.

As The Baltimore Sun editorialized,

"Could this explain why defenders of "Male/Female", the sculpture in front of Penn Station, get so irritable? That large piece of quadrupedal artwork is out there all on its own, unclothed of commemorative armor that might deflect public criticism – unless you want to think of it as a memorial to the war between the sexes, but that's an issue that people tend to have a lot of different and strongly held opinions about anyway. No, "Male/Female" gets a lot of attention strictly on its artistic merits, and much of it isn't very positive, especially concerning its setting in front of the Beaux–Arts railroad station. This drives its proponents up the wall."

Three years later, Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks ridiculed the artwork, writing on August 26, 2007, "Patrons of art here paid $750,000 for a 51-foot sculpture...that looks like Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still. I look at it and want to say: 'Klaatu barada nikto!' It's the first thing visitors see when they walk out of the train station." Another Sun reporter, commenting in July 2008 on what she described as the "stormy relationship" between Baltimore and public art, said "People's hate for Penn Station's behemoth Male/Female sculpture has burned for years."

The Male/Female artwork in front of Penn Station

Proposed hotel and remodel

Penn Station's interior

In March 2006, Amtrak was reported to be in negotiations with a unnamed developer to build a 72-room hotel on three unused floors of Penn Station, possibly also including additional retail space on the station's main floor. If Amtrak were to build a hotel at Penn Station, it would be a first for any Amtrak station in the United States.

On May 29, 2009, Amtrak announced it had reached an agreement for a 77-room hotel, to be called The Inn at Penn Station, on the station's top three floors.

Checkers speech

During what became known as the Checkers speech, on September 23, 1952, Richard Nixon, then a U.S. Senator from California and the Republican Party's nominee for Vice President, cited Penn Station as the place where a package was waiting for him, containing a cocker spaniel dog his daughter Tricia would name "Checkers." Nixon erred in naming the station, using its former name, calling it "Union Station in Baltimore."

External links

• Baltimore Pennsylvania Station – Amtrak
• Baltimore Pennsylvania Station – Station history at Great American Stations (Amtrak)
• Penn Station (view from St. Paul Street) on Google Street View
• Baltimore Penn(Amtrak-MARC-BLR) Station (USA RailGuide -- TrainWeb)