Chicago Union Station to have major upgrade!

This is very good news, Art. I love this station and maybe someone will do a model of the current version that to me is a truly beautiful structure.

I think this is a very smart move on the part of Amtrak.

Actually, a few years ago, the fabulous folks at Trainworx Design began offering a series of famous railroad stations -- following their production of the Grand Central Terminal building for Lionel in 2005.  Wow... Hard to believe that was already 10 years ago!!!

IIRC, Chicago Union Station was the first of those follow-on stations.  Production is limited to 250 units, but I think there's still plenty of room in the plan to accomodate.  

David

Awesome news ...tracks are back ....and now we'll have somewhere to go !

And Amtrak wonders why they can't make any money??!!

They believe that this venture will bring in enough revenue to make it profitable.  While I realize there are few, if any, parts of Amtrak that are truly profitable, it will be nice to see Union Station in some of it's former glory.

Art

Lets hope that if they put all of this stuff in, there is SOMETHING that is open past about 9PM.  Four of us had about an hour and a half to kill before catching the last Metra to Bensenville on a Saturday night last summer, and there was NOTHING to do, or a coffee shop open or ANYTHING, even though there were hundreds of people in the station that night.  It's just like Indianapolis International Airport.  Flights may come and go all night, but after about 10PM, they roll ,up the sidewalks and go home. 

Income from Amtrak's real-estate holdings contribute at least 10% of the 85% of operational costs that the carrier funds out of its own earnings. This initiative is at very least a good thing.

Real estate is how Hong Kong's MTR manages to turn a profit*--it owns the land surrounding its stations and makes money off the commercial leases, in a practice called "value capture". It's the only reason that passenger rail operator runs a profit.

*the only passenger-rail operator generally acknowledged to be profitable, above and below the rail

---PCJ

 If we can help our freight railroads we can help Amtrak  

How do we "help our freight railroads"?

You can check out this AAR publication, dated May 2015 which details four "Public Private Partnerships" or PPPs for short:

https://www.aar.org/Background...e%20Partnerships.pdf

The four PPPs listed are:

1.  Alameda Corridor
2.   Heartland Corridor
3.   Chicago Regional Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program (CREATE)
4.   National Gateway Project.

GNNPNUT

Thinking about this more, there are a couple of other examples off the top of my head:

• Double tracking of the old Wisconsin Central line from Shiller Park up to I believe Antioch was done with public money.  WC, and then CN, reaped the benefit of less conjestion on this section of railway, with no investment on their part. 
• Metrolink has purchased 175 miles of existing railway from I believe BNSF and UPRR, and either a portion, or a majority of this trackage is dual usage.  It was upgraded using public money.  You can see this link, and do additional research on Google for specifics.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...uthern_California%29
• And then there are grade crossing separation projects and "quiet zone" projects that are usually funded with public funds, with a benefit to the railroad of improved grade crossing safety, which reduces delays and litigation. 

GNNPNUT

This.

We took the train to Union Station this year at the O scale march meet.   The loop was hopping but other than the ticketing agents, the most beautiful part of the train station was dead. 

Maybe it's just me but government entities that own active old train stations often don't do a whole lot to attract businesses that exploit all of their charm.