The Terminal Station lies due west of the Administration Building, and forms the western boundary of the Court of Honor. It was designed in the mixed Roman-Corinthian style, by Mr. C. B. Atwood.
Terminal Station
View from SE during construction
1892
From The Official Directory of This World’s Columbian Exposition, By Moses P. Handy:
This is a handsome structure, located directly west of the Administration Building, and forming the west side of the great square. The terminal station is of the Roman-Corinthian style of architecture. In general plan this station is divided into three sections. The central is 200 feet in length by the full depth of the building. It forms the great vestibule. The east and west sections are three stories in height, and contain the waiting rooms, check-rooms, lunch counters, and the general railroad offices. The central section extends the full length of the building. A marvelous effect is attained by an immense gallery on the second floor. The gallery is 25 feet wide, and extends entirely around the central section, giving it an aggregate length of some 600 feet. Two broad stairways, built in the highest art known to moderns, lead up to the gallery from the main floor. In actual use the gallery is an additional waiting-room, but it also is a convenient place for friends to meet.
Terminal Station
Interior
1893
In the upper part of the great hall there is a frieze of clock faces 24 in number and 5 feet in diameter. They give the time of day or night at twenty-four of the principal cities of the world. The great hall in its principal features and proportions, is adapted from the hall of the Baths of Caracalla at Rome. The construction material consists of wood and iron and the exterior and interior finish and decoration is of staff. Rising above the station are two illuminated balls of metal and glass, 10 feet in diameter. They show clock faces in every direction giving local time. The terminal facilities include everything except baggage rooms. Trunks of excursionists over the various roads will not be taken into the grounds at all, but will be delivered from the down-town depots.
Terminal Station
Photographed by C. D. Arnold
1893
Connected to the west side of the station is the perron, or landing platform, 80×672 feet, with an overhanging roof, from which a system of umbrella sheds, 13 in number, extend westward a distance of 500 feet.
Terminal Station
1893
The entire system of railroads is concentrated here upon 35 tracks. A platform extends along the west side of the building on the level of the second story, with wide covered passage ways leading over the roof of the Perron to the intramural elevated railway, which crosses the system of surface tracks above mentioned.
The entire cost of the main building is $250,000, and of the perron and umbrella sheds, $50,000, making a total of $300,000.
Terminal Station
Interior
1893
The Terminal Tracks.
The terminal tracks proper are twenty-six in number, terminating at the west side of the train shed, where are located the entrance and exit gates. In addition to these twenty-six tracks, are nine passing tracks which can be used in an emergency service. Beyond these terminal tracks is the storage yard which consists of twenty storage tracks and four running tracks. In the center of the yard between the storage and terminal tracks is provided a sixty six foot turntable for the purpose of turning engines or cars if required. There there also provided five water cranes connected with a 50,000 gallon water tank, for the purpose of furnishing water to the locomotives. For the operation of this terminal, power interlocking is provided. There are in the grounds two switch cabins or towers A and B. The south tower B, contains seventy levers and controls the entrance into the terminal and the south end of the storage yard. The north tower A, contains 160 levers and controls the north end of the storage yard and the terminal tracks proper. The power is steam, furnished by a battery of boilers at each tower. The steam forces a column of water through an iron pipe under ground, which in turn throws the switch or signal. On approaching the yard a train meets with a signal, and from that time on is completely under the control of the superintendent of terminals, who, acting through the levermen in the towers, guides it to its proper track, without any possibility of mishap or danger.
Terminal Station
Terminal Tracks
The station burned down in a fire on July 5, 1894.