Baltimore Penn Station opened on the night of September 14, 1911, and was designed by Kenneth M. Murchison. The station's core is a three story (upper stories are not open to the public) Beaux-Arts style station with tall columns in front of the station. The station is accessed via a grand driveway with an attached green canopy structure that runs between St. Paul Street and Charles Street both of which cross the tracks and freeway on bridges. This driveway is on an island of sorts with the train tracks in an open cut just to the north and the open-cut Jones Falls Expressway (I-83) just south of the station. Luckily pedestrian access to the south (towards Downtown Baltimore) is decent so it doesn't fully feel like the freeway cut off the station from Downtown.
The circle in front of the station has a distinctive sculpture Male/Female by Johnathan Borofsky. This is a controversial 15.5 meter silver sculpture with LEDs illuminating figures of the human form. The sculpture does provide a modern contrast to the historic Beaux-Arts columns, clock, and Pennsylvania Station in gold letters beneath the clock and above the stonework in front of the station entrance. The sculpture was installed in 2004.
Upon entering the station, passengers are greeted by two distinctive areas a main station hall area, and the distinctively separate gate area with access to the train platforms. The main station hall area has marble clad columns and a marble floor. There is a balcony enclosing the space above with a unique circular skylight. The balcony is sadly not open to the public with the staircases up to it closed off and saying, "Authorized personal only." Light fixtures line walls lined in gold.
Along the eastern wall of the waiting room is the Amtrak ticket office along with a bank of QuikTrak Machines and MARC Vending machines directly in front of the ticket windows. The western end of the main waiting room contains the entrance to restrooms with a nice area of wooden seating between the restrooms and the main entrance. Baltimore-Penn Station is just small enough that it has retained plenty of benches for waiting passengers with no strictly enforced show your ticket tiny waiting room area like at other larger Amtrak stations particularly along the Northeast Corridor.
Three arches from the main station entrance area connect seamlessly with the waiting area and gate area down to the train platforms portion of the station. These arches are directly aligned with the doors in from the street (along with corridors on either side). The waiting area has green tiled walls and light fixtures that are unique with cornucopias beneath them. This waiting area portion is in the shape of a T, running lengthways for the width of the main station building, with a central area that provides all access to all tracks (except for the Baltimore Light Rail Link platform).
The entrance to this central waiting area where platform access is an information desk. Here you can watch the Amtrak gate usher make announcements for trains, interrupting the modern robotic voice announcements. This information desk sits behind and under a modern LED departure board. All Marc and Amtrak trains are announced equally by the same staff with all Marc station stops listed correctly (looking at you Wilmington). When I visited the station in 2008 this was still a Solari Flip board. There are plenty of comfortable and historic wooden benches for waiting passengers along the walls of this waiting area. Sadly, the ceiling in this area has been replaced in a poor 1980's renovation with white acoustic tile along with inset lighting instead of a more historic ceiling.
To reach trains, gates lead down to the station's 4 platforms, lettered A through G. Although as of early 2025 Gates A and B are under construction because the platform is under construction with this platform closed. The station requests that passengers wait in the waiting area but trains are announced for boarding 5 to 10 minutes prior to the trains arrival, with a gate (important because some gates only lead to an elevator and up escalator) and track number. There are no “gate dragons” to check tickets at the gates although the platforms do feel like they are not public spaces.
To the sides of the main track entrance, the waiting room extends to be the same width as the main station building. At the eastern end is the Amtrak Customer Service office and Baggage Check Room. This is followed by a newsstand between the waiting room and main station concourse, the entrance to the waiting room, followed by a staircase (and elevator shared with the office space on upper floors of the station) down to the MTA Maryland Light Rail Platform (closed as of 2025).
The western end of this waiting room contains a Shoe Shine and Duken Donuts kiosok plus the perminately closed Java Moon Cafe Resturant. This is followed by closed doors out to a second station entrance along Charles Street. The doors out of the station are presently (as of 2025) closed because of construction, along the Light Rail's platform and platform for Track 3 (the lowest numbered railroad track) below.
Photos 1-11 June 16, 2009; 12-25: October 10, 2015; 26-61: September 1, 2024; 62-77: January 17, 2025;
