Nashville's Union Station is a former railroad terminal designed by Richard Montfort, chief engineer of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and built in 1900 to serve the passengers of the eight railroads that provided passenger service to Nashville, Tennessee, at the time. Built just west of the downtown area, it was spanned by a viaduct adjacent to the station and positioned to the east and above a natural railroad cut, through which most of the tracks in the area were routed. The station was also used by streetcars prior to their discontinuance in Nashville in 1941. It ceased train operation in 1979, and lay abandoned until opening as a hotel in 1986. Union Station became a Marriott Autograph Collection Hotel in 2012 and completed a full renovation of all guest rooms and public spaces in 2016. It became a member of Historic Hotels of America in 2015. History Opened October 9, 1900, as a Louisville & Nashville Railroad station, Union Station had a long history before it shut down in October 1979. When a new post office was built in Nashville in 1935, it was located adjacent to Union Station. A connecting passageway between the two was used to transport mail to and from trains for more than three decades. The station reached peak usage during World War II when it served as the shipping-out point for tens of thousands of U.S. troops and was the site of a USO canteen. The station's decline started in the 1960s, amid the larger nationwide decline in passenger rail service. By the end of the decade, the L&N was the only railroad using the station. Only six trains per day stopped there, down from 16 in the late 1940s. The primary passenger trains through Nashville over the years included: Decline Amtrak took over intercity service on May 1, 1971. For much of 1971, Nashville was severed from the national rail network. On November 14, 1971 Amtrak began running a single route through Nashville, the Floridian, successor of the South Wind, with service once in each direction between Chicago and–via a split in Wildwood, Florida–St. Petersburg and Miami. However, the Floridian made its final run on October 9, 1979 after being plagued by rampant delays. The last train to call at Union Station was a southbound Floridian, ending over 120 years of intercity rail service in Nashville. Many of its open spaces were roped