It is the western terminus of the MBTA Commuter Rail Framingham/Worcester Line and a stop for the Amtrak Lake Shore Limited service.

A bus terminal adjacent to the station is the hub for Worcester Regional Transit Authority (WRTA) local bus service; it is also used by PVTA, MART, Peter Pan, and Greyhound intercity buses.

Designed by Ware & Van Brunt, it was modeled after a Roman basilica and featured a 212-foot (65 m)-tall clocktower.

[4]: 126, 168 Construction of a new Union Station on the southwest side of Washington Square began in 1909 as part of a grade separation project.

The main waiting room featured an elliptical arched roof with stained glass.

[6] Commuter rail service between Worcester and Framingham (with no intermediate stops after 1960) was not subsidized by the MBTA; with just ten riders per day riding from Worcester, service was cut back to Framingham on October 27, 1975.

[7][8] Amtrak began operating a Boston-Albany section of the Lake Shore Limited four days later.

[5] Boston-New Haven (Inland Route) service was restored under the Bay State name in 1984, and ran in various forms until the early 2000s.

[6] The abandoned Union Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

[5] Some peak-hour MBTA Commuter Rail Framingham/Worcester Line service was extended to Worcester on September 26, 1994.

[7] Union Station was acquired by the Worcester Redevelopment Authority in 1994 and completely renovated at a cost of $32 million.

The Grand Hall (the original waiting room), had its elliptical stained-glass ceilings, interior marble columns, and mahogany wood trim restored.

[17] From 2000 to 2024, Union Station had a single high-level side platform several cars long.

This limited the number of daily trains that could serve Worcester, and caused frequent cascading delays.