A Journey On Track.

Training the Eye.

Kansas City, Missouri – Standing in Kansas City’s historic Union Station, you can almost hear the ghosts of steam engines rattling past.

You can almost feel the bustle of tweed-capped travelers and of soldiers heading to war. It’s easy to get lost imagining the story behind the scuffs and nicks in the marble floors.

Built in 1914, the Beaux-Arts structure was the second-largest train station in the United States at the time. It is now mostly an event, education and community space, having mercifully been rescued from the scrap heap during the 1990s after being abandoned a decade previously.

It was here in 1933 infamous bank robber Frank Nash and four law enforcement agents died in a hail of bullets in what would become known as the Kansas City Massacre. As a result, all FBI agents would be armed for the first time.

The train bells now? They come from a room full of model trains of all sizes, which wind their way through a variety of landscapes framed by lit buildings and the trappings of rural towns.

The Great Hall’s towering 95-foot ceilings, however, continue to swallow visitors. There’s an irony in something so grand now housing something so small.

But, at least it still allows the past to whisper.