Nostalgia & History > Station Saturday

This image of the Burlington station in Omaha was taken in about 2006. This is the north or trackside of the station. Here’s a brief history of the station as I know it from my 20 years in Omaha. Some Omaha folks will probably correct any errors. Not sure when the BN moved out but the story was they had some dispatchers located there and then when they moved out it sat empty for a long time. Someone bought the station and did considerable work, including removing the floor in the great hall, to turn the building into a restaurant. But that project was never completed. It changed hands and someone bought it and used it to store chemicals or petroleum products which was a zoning violation so it was up for sale again. I think it was sold again around 2006 for about $600,000, as I recall, and it was to be converted to condos. But this was about the time the housing market tanked so that deal flopped. Then, in 2013, the Local ABC affiliate in Omaha bought it and converted it to their studios. All of the structures you see on the outside of the station have been removed, including the last remnants of a walkway that once extended over the tracks from the Q station to Omaha Union Station.  I’m sure the BNSF was glad to see that go. Sometime in the early 2000s a BNSF dispatcher routed a stack train up the Omaha sub but there was not sufficient clearance under the walkway and a bunch of containers got their tops sheared off. It must have cost a butt load of money to rehab that building. One example of why was that all the brick work you see on the lower level was just turning to dust. 
 

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