The station of the Central Vermont Railway at St. Albans, Vt., is quite unlike most of the stations with which we are familiar today. Not small, rundown and forgotten, neither is it immense and unused. Passenger trains still rumble through it, but no one is trying to sell or lease rights to the air space above it. The fact that it is a part of the rail network gives it an air of being linked with the rest of the world. But the traveler that looks at the massive proportions and antiquated lines of the trainshed must wonder to what world this station is linked. St. Albans station is a ghost from the past – a specimen, and a handsome one, of the Victorian age of railroad architecture.
For the traveler arriving from Boston on the evening train, The Montrealer, the first link with the past is the old style signal system. On the way into the trainshed trains pass two ball-type signals still in use. By day, several red painted cans suspended from a chain pass the signal to the engineman; by night, oil lamps suspended in the same way burn in the same positions. Part way down the pole there is a round shield into which one or all of the balls can be lowered – by hand – depending on the indication to be given. Two other ball signals are located north of the station, making a total of four in the area.
The incoming train crosses Lake Street (which points the way to Lake Champlain 10 miles west) and enters the great barn like structure with its huge brick arch portals. This part of the building, the trainshed, is 351 feet long and 88 feet wide. I
This is a picture that my cousin painted of the St. Albans train shed. Jack Barrett painted it for Lee Barrett. The picture does not do the actual painting justice. Family rich in railroad history in St. Albans VT
BaltACD-- Could they not have simply built a line or two parallel to the shed outside of the building…surely more reasonable than demolition of history and architecture.
ST. ALBANS—The 97-year-old Central Vermont Railway trainshed here, believed to be the last of its type in the U.S., will be razed this summer as a safety and economy measure. “The old shed is badly in need of repair,” General Manager Frederick W. Hutchinson said, “and it would cost more to repair it than it will to take it down.”
From Wanswheel—The old shed is badly in need of repair," General Manager Frederick W. Hutchinson said, “and it would cost more to repair it than it will to take it down.”
Didn’t they use that line in Animal Farm?
What a load of hooey.
In the video the view from the parallel track as it runs past shows no signs of massive deterioration or bricks out of alignment or crumbling.
It has outlived it’s usefulness with the demise of passenger service and would cost money to maintain and pay taxes on. So what?
It should have been preserved plain and simple. Vermont, Vermonters’ , CV and CN know better.
Suppose that Balt ACD is correct. Thinking of the times.
Trinity-- Don’t count on that! Ask Columbus and Jefferson.
Also, remember that municipal taxes are based on property value, and the trainshed would increase the assessed value as an “improvement”. There was real economic benefit to removing buildings once no longer needed. Even in cases where a town has successfully begged the railway not to demolish a redundant station immediately, that generally did not mean the related property tax was foregone the next year. Stupid, but reality.
The big issue was that the roof trusses were shot. Snow load is a big deal in St. Albans.
There’s a photo out there someplace of a B&M RDC-3 poking its end out of the trainshed. CV/CN trip-leased RDCs from B&M for their part of Boston/New York-Montreal service for a year or so in the late 1950s.
Sounds like the same old sad story. If the building can’t earn it’s keep, and there’s no money in the budget to keep it up, what are you going to do?
A railroad is a business after all, not a historic preservation society.
Still, it’s a shame anyway you look at it. Possibly private funds might have been raised to preserve it, but prior to the Pennsylvania Station demolition waking everyone up who thought that way in 1963?
Great information and a great thread…thank you to Wanswheel.
The second link to the National Park Service, where you refer to the shopping carts, does not work at the moment. The Park Service states it is their fault.
Am I to understand that the entire structure was on the National Historic Sites list? That and the fact that the shed was the last of it’s kind anywhere puts the destruction of this on the scale of the Taliban blowing up Buddha statues!.
I do not get it. Not at all.
Well they did tear down magnificient Pennsylvannia Station and blew up half of Castle Rock so what’s a train shed?
