Who has a depot on your layout, and what do you use them for? I have a Walthers City station, that I built a highly detailed interior, I use it as a MOW office and storage facility. No freight or passengers, just MOW.
It probably depends on your era and location. If you model a modern day railroad, passenger traffic might not be part of your operation at all. If you model a transition era, railroad like I do, passenger traffic will probably be a big part of the scheme. In that era, almost every small town had a working depot. When complete, my layout will have 5 depots.
I have a small station, which, though quite modern looking, will definitley take freight as well.
I am trying to fit in a depot on my layout, but for the 70’s on a branchline, it will be in bad shape and serving no passengers.
You could have active depots/stations on a modern layout for the Modern Era (1970s and later) if you are modeling commuter services - even better, you can have several stations at the (sometimes unrealistically) close spacing found on layouts - maybe 2 or so old stations, either worn out (particularly in the 1960s-1980s era, when government transit authorities were taking over commuter services from private railroads) or restored, repainted, and in good shape (later era - here you could have part of the station be a chain retail outlet like Subway/Quiznos/Starbucks/Dunkin Donuts etc.), and then the other stations would be ‘shelter’ stations, where the old depot was demolished and replaced by a minimalistic struture/waiting area. One thing is to standardize on the type of signage lettering/sizes/colours/etc as signs tend to be all the same style for a given transit authority (although here and there they may retain older, fancier signage, or even add some ‘retro-style’ signs, along with the standardize signs)
The restored stations tend to be the bigger, more important ones, and probably would be build of stone/brick/adobe rather than wood.
I have a freight house that is very heavy on LCL behind a Passenger Depot. I look at late steam with the ability for Mail, LCL and baggage as well as small packages that might be needed in the nearby area.
The actual depot area indicates that town and has a few industries that will sort of find a home nearby. All in all makes a great place for a train to stop, grab lunch and perhaps water/coal the locomotive real quick before the afternoon run.
I have a small station on my layout 1980’s to present till 06 any way. it still has passenger sevice CSX serves it. Using a an old B&O passenger car and a Chessie GP38.
My future layout will have a depot. It will serve the town of South Dayton, NY just as it did back in the 40’s early 50’s. Mainley freight for the local farmers, tractor dealers and such with an ocassional passenge train thrown in.
where i live theres an old texas and pacific freight house that is now used as a shortlines office and a couple of blocks over is an old very small passenger depot
tom
Yup. But then, I model the WWII steam era, so there’s still more than enough passenger traffic to warrant depots. I have 2 of the old IHC ‘Arlee’ stations, one at Wagon Wheel Gap and one in Sierra City, and there will be a Walther’s depot in the Nevada City (Deer Creek) yards as soon as I get that portion done, and I’ve even got a little WS flagstop depot up on Yuba Pass at Bassett’s. They’re fun, they’re in use, and they’re active as all get-out about four times a day when I run the Yuba River Express (local) or the Panoramic (all-Pullman transcon). Troop trains, of course, slide right through, unless the loco has to stop for water.
Depots are WAY COOL!
Tom [:P]
I have the Walthers Freight station on mine painted in NYC “greens”. I’ll try to include a pic as soon as the Railimages.com server gets back online again…
Tom
Every layout I’ve ever had has had a depot if nothing else. That’s like the cherry on the pie, and gives the train somewhere to depart from and return to.
I model from the 1930s through the 1950s, and have been through two depots since I built my present layout. The first one was okay, but I painted it red with white trim. I’m much happier with the new one, and did it in mustard yellow with brown trim. I then added benches, sitting people, a station master, people standing and waiting, a trash can, crates, posters, signs, etc to dress it up. I also added a home made semaphore that turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.
Tracklayer
Depots as others said depend on your eara, most now are used for MOW or are simply abandoned. some of the main depots may be used by an RTC for controling trains on the line.