Union Station (Manchester, New Hampshire)

Manchester Union Station

Company type	Former railway station
Industry	Transportation
Founded	1898
Fate	Demolished in 1962
Headquarters	Manchester, New Hampshire , United States

Manchester Union Station functioned as a union station in Manchester, New Hampshire, accommodating passenger rail services passing through the city. Constructed in 1898, by 1910 it exclusively served trains operated by the Boston and Maine Railroad.

Location

Positioned just to the east of the Merrimack River, the station stood at the base of Depot Street, close to where Canal and Granite streets intersect.

Passenger services

During its peak in the 1940s, Manchester Union Station managed several prominent named trains:

• The Ambassador and New Englander were overnight services running between Boston and Montreal via central Vermont stops including Montpelier and Essex Falls.
• The Alouette and Red Wing operated as night trains on the Boston to Montreal route through northern Vermont towns such as Wells River and St. Johnsbury; passengers could transfer at Newport to the Connecticut Yankee for onward travel to Sherbrooke and Quebec City.

In addition to these, the station provided local connections to Boston via Methuen and Lawrence, northbound services to Concord, Laconia, Plymouth, and Woodsville, as well as east-west routes reaching Portsmouth on the Atlantic coast.

Moreover, it offered a connection at Lowell, Massachusetts with the State of Maine Express, a direct train linking New York City to Portland that bypassed Boston.

Demise

By the late 1950s, passenger rail traffic had significantly diminished, leaving only a vestige of the Ambassador continuing to Montreal without a name. The station itself was razed in 1962. Nevertheless, trains still passed through Manchester en route to White River Junction, Vermont, where transfers were available to the New Haven Railroad's Montrealer, with service extending from Manchester to Concord. Passenger rail operations in Manchester ceased entirely in 1967 following the termination of the Boston-Concord line.