I am writing a booklet for our local historical society about Kent, Ohio’s connection to Erie RR predecessor Atlantic & Great Western Railroad and specifically its depot in Kent which opened in 1875.
I am asking that those who are knowledgeable about the Erie RR in the nineteenth century to please post here the titles of books they think would be helpful in researching Erie’s activities and operations in Ohio from about 1853until about 1930. I am seeking books, magazine articles, and other places where information can be found.
In particular, does anyone know where station floor plans or old photographs may be found? How does one really dig into the matter of a station’s history and its relation to its neighborhood and town? Let me add that I am a historian and have a list of obvious places to look for help; it’s the railfan perspective and knowledge that I seek.
I will be contacting the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society but I was wondering if anyone can recommend any other such groups which may know something or have materials about the Kent, Ohio depot.
By the way, I know the definition of a terminal, but are the terms “depot” and “station” interchangeable?
Any help or information anyone can offer will be gratefully received.
P.S. I did not post this at the Preservation forum because that seems to be primarily about locomo
The fellow who runs this site - “Multimodalways” - seems to be mostly interested in Ohio lines, although most of the items seem to be well after the period in which you’re interested. Nevertheless, it might be worth an inquiry:
After that, my next thought was to ‘Do whatever John A. Rehor did !’ in writing his 1960’s Kalmbach book on The Nickel Plate Road. I’ve not yet seen a better compilation and collection of very early photographs and assembly of the 19th century history of a line and the multitude of constituent lines that were assembled to form it (perhaps at the expense of a more thorough treatment of the recent 20th century aspects, though).
(1) Get thee to Akron PRONTO! http://www3.uakron.edu/archival/ErieLack/erie1.htm (but make sue you read Phieffer’s RIP 91 first - If you do not know the lingo, the learning curve will bog you down severely. Government made the railroads play by an arcane set of Accounting Rules known as Addition & Betterment [what’s depreciation] and railroad engineering is different than what the rubber-tired bubba’s get into or understand) …Look at the sections regarding RG-134 and RG-49 in particular, then go after the AFE (Authority For Expenditure) and B&B (Bridge and Building) records & files.
(2) Then go to the archives and get the field notes mentioned above (Hint: there will be sketches in the track notes and the stuctures notes, mostly done 1915-1926)…You are going to need a vendor at the Archives (NARA Staff is limited in helping the general public. Consider using these folks: www.do-you.com Understand that this process takes time - NARA procedure and finding aids are arcane to the first time user) …for that matter, when they inventoried the building, they even told you the contents of the desk drawer, right down to the number of pencils and paperclips in each drawer[X-)])