Westword
August 14, 2008, Joel Warner

Passengers disembark from the rumbling trains by the hundreds, by the thousands. They've arrived at this station from Aurora and Littleton, from Golden and Boulder, even from over the Continental Divide and across the Great Plains. As the trains empty and creep away from the platforms, others pull in, disgorging more passengers. The new arrivals stream across the yard, under sweeping wrought-iron canopies, through granite arches and into the cathedral-like train room: vaulted ceiling overhead, two-story windows, grand chandeliers. Lines form at ticket windows, out-of-towners stop by information desks and peruse restaurants and gift shops. Beyond it all, through the station's front doors, lies the Mile High City. Welcome to Union Station, the gateway to Denver. Such was the scene roughly a century ago. Union Station opened at 17th and Wynkoop streets in 1881 as a consolidated depot for the many railway interests in Denver, and its dramatic proportions — it was the largest building in the city — made it clear that it would be the connection between the young municipality and the rest of the world. Soon the station was welcoming as many as ninety trains a day, bringing with them laborers, merchants and visionaries, not to mention celebrities, presidents and royalty. But after World War II, rail lines abdicated their reign to freeways and jetliners. Today, Union Station stands as a quiet shell of its former self, its great room often empty save for a straggle of passengers waiting for the two Amtrak trains that roll in each day, or the weekly runs of the Ski Train to Winter Park. While the building remains one of the most recognizable in the city, it has become an artifact, a quaint remembrance of a time when people took the advice of the station's iconic, illuminated "Travel by Train." But Union Station could once again welcome rail passengers by the hundreds and thousands. In 2001, a consortium of public agencies purchased the station from its private owners in hopes that it would become the central hub of a future transportation system....

http://www.westword.com/2008-08-14/news/union-station-may-become-denver-s-gateway-again-if-it-stays-on-track/