Our next stop was the Marion Union Station which was built in the early 1900's at the urging of Warren G. Harding. He saw a need to update the old run-down station that was serving Marion at the time. Soon after it was built, Harding ran for President and thousands of people passed through this station on their way to attend his "Front Porch" campaigns. Later in 1923, the Marion Union Station served as the last rail stop on Harding's funeral procession. During World War II the station was use as a canteen stop for troops going to and coming home from war. Marion at one time was the largest and most frequent stop between New York and Chicago.
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| Union Station Train Depot |
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| Interesting Bricks at the Depot |
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| Control Tower |
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| Inside the Depot |
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| This train came rolling through as we were at the depot |
Passenger service stopped on April 30, 1971, and the doors were closed to the station. Currently the station is used as a museum and a meeting spot for model railroaders. There is still a lot of train traffic behind this station although now it doesn't stop. A pair of CSX track pass behind the depot, a pair of Norfolk Southern tracks pass to the right of the station, and another pair of CSX tracks pass to the left of the depot. This creates a unique feature of eight diamonds directly at the station, so more than 100 trains pass the station each day. While we were there two trains went rolling on past.
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| Train Car on Display |
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| Courthouse in Marion, Ohio |
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