What has happend to the train station in your town especially if passenger train service has been terminated?
I live in Nelson, B.C. The rail station here has been abandoned for several years and looks kinda bad as it’s rotting away. There has been talk of restoring it but it’s been talk for at least 2 years to my knowledge. I heard that City Hall was going to move some of their offices in to it or Tourism B.C. was but it could have been just talk I heard.
Actually, I am fixing to go there in about 45 minutes to watch trains. The RR ceased stopping their in the early 70’s but the city took it over and takes great care of it and the two cabooses parked there.
…The question is of interest to me. Passenger trains seem to hold a special interest and that correlates to the local depot too.
My “depot” was located, actually in Kantner, Pa. but it’s ID was Stoystown, a small town just a mile away.
It sat along the B&0 on the S&C branch between Somerset and Johnstown, Pa. I believe the last of the several passenger trains that plied that route stopped running about the beginning of the 30’s…a bit before I knew anything about trains…Probably they were victims of the Great Depression of that era…The line was mostly a coal hauler but did carry freight as well.
I remember being in it sometime in the late 30’s or early 40’s when I was quite young and seeing the operator, Charlie Snyder sitting at his desk and with all the typical RR things around him…key, and sounder box, and so forth. At that time it was still an operating depot even though the passenger traffic was gone…Freight and coal were a busy part of the line for years after.
Fast forward to the early 50’s and we find the station moved to Somerset and it was to be used as a “depot” for a tourist operation that really never got up and going very well…Believe it might have operated briefly {I was in the service at that time}, but than it was dormant and eventually the track removed. That was the old “Boswell Branch”.
Much later…After 2000, the station was disassembled and moved back to the area of Stoystown / Kantner…and by now it was in really bad shape. The local Lions organization contracted Amish framers to rebuild the “depot”, and it now stands rebuilt on grounds near where it originally served the RR. The grounds are owned by the Legion and Lions organizations
Sadly, the three remaining passenger depots in our city have been dying a slow, and agonizing death.[V] Passenger service stopped here in the early 70’s. The Great Northern depot is the BNSF yard office, still in fairly good shape, from the outside at least. The Milwaukee Road depot had it’s fancy hip roof buzzed off, to be replaced with a flat,tar roof. Some of the pink quartzite rock has been covered with corrugated steel-painted pink. It was a spaghetti restaurant, followed by several unsucessful bars. It’s now a halway house for people coming out of drug re-hab.
The Rock Island depot is a realy neat old building that was the the hot pick-up bar for a number of years. The neighboring insurance company bought the building a few years ago, just to keep it from becoming another of the scummy bars that it had been in recent years. It appears they use it for storage, but keep the outside nice.
&nb
after years of the city and csx sticking their tongues out at each other someone else decided to burn the depot down.the city bulldozed it and now the local flower club is taking donations to make the site look better.will keep you posted.
stay safe
Joe
The old CNW depot in Oshkosh became an office building that’s utilized to this day. It’s still it’s original size and external configuration (original as far as I remember) so the building is being maintained. I don’t think they have kept anything historical up inside and outside tho. At least you can see where it was/is relative to the tracks.
My city has three stations, one is a Metra station at Rt. 59 in Aurora which hardly counts as a station based on the classic perception of the term. The Rt. 59 “station” is one of the busiest on the Metra system (perhaps THE busiest outside of CUT) and is in good shape having been built not many years ago. The second is the newer Metra station in downtown Aurora which is part of the old CB&Q shops area that now houses a restaurant, dry cleaners, etc. in the old roundhouse building. It has been nicely restored and now serves Metra many times a day from its stub end tracks. The third station is the old (not original, having been rebuilt several times at about the same location) CB&Q station on Broadway in downtown Aurora. This station served both Metra and Amtrak when I moved here back in 1978 but now Amtrak has moved to the very nice Naperville Amtrak/Metra station a few miles to the east. The old Aurora CB&Q station is very big and in pretty bad shape with its parking lot fenced off to deter gangs, etc. and its doors and windows boarded up (I drove by there a couple weeks back to check on it’s condition). There have been reports of a developer planning on making the station into condos some time in the future, but I’m not holding my breath waiting.
The Milwaukee Road depot, after a couple of failed dinner clubs, is now the world headquarters fo the Boone & Crocket group which keeps track of record wildlife trophies. The Northern Pacific depot, after a couple of failed dinner clubs, is now owned by the Washington Corporations and is office space some of which is occupied by TSA. Both are in a good state of repair and are well kept.
The Union Pacific Station in Omaha has been kept well maintained and is now called The Durham Western Heritage Museum. They have some UP passenger equipment, some other train related displays, and they usually introduce a new history based theme about once a month.
The Burlington Northern Station (right across the tracks from the Durham Western Heritage Museum) has been left to decay, but there has been some talk of turning it into condos and a restaurant in the near future.
The C.P.R. train station (depot) in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan is now a Government Liquor Store, and a very large one (ahh–socialism at it’s finest) but it came pretty close to being demolished, on the east side of town is the old C.N.R. station which is now a spa and clinic. so much for the days of travelling by train eh folks??? also Moose Jaw is a divisional point and home of the heavy haul division(great, great train watching, with plenty of access)
While I have postcards of the Santa Monica train station and a photograph in a book of the Ocean Park train station (the part of Santa Monica I live in), they have both been gone since the 1950s. The Santa Monica train station land is now a park. The Ocean Park train station land was a bank, which became a Blockbuster, and is now just an empty building itself.
Next door to the Ocean Park station are two railroad buildings that still stand. The Pacific Electric agent’s office is now a mailbox and copy shop. The Pacific Electric transfer station (where busses were once kept for connections) is now a very popular restaurant.
Just south of here, the Venice, California main depot was a storefront in a larger building. It survives as a store and has had a number of tenants over the years. A touch south of the there, the Veince City Hall depot has been moved a few blocks and is a business. It was built to look like a Japanese train station and has a very distinctive roof.
Lastly, about three miles from here, the Old Soldier’s Home depot is the only local one that survives as it was when served by passenger trains. It is used as an art gallery sometimes, and other times is just left alone. It is a small building on the grounds of the Veteran’s Adminstration in West Los Angeles and is in decent shape (although it could use some wood repair). It is classic Los Angeles & Pacific (later Pacific Electric) in all its glory, and worth a look see if you are ever in LA.
Good news from here, on two fronts.
The current Lombard station, built in the mid-1970s, is still active and open on weekdays, serving a large number of Metra commuters. I suspect the agent there is near retirement, but also suspect that he’s also responsible for a lot of the “personal” touches in the office and waiting room. The station also has a coffee shop that’s open in the mornings (I never get to be there when it’s open).
Now, to Grand Haven, Michgan, where I grew up. The Grand Trunk Western had an 1870 passenger station that was, when I was growing up, used as an agency for the then-freight-only service and as quarters for the engine crews that laid over there three times a week. When the City wanted to obtain some property for a riverfront stadium (about 1968 or 1969) they bought the station and surrounding property, and built a new crew facility/office for the railroad a few hundred feet away. The old station is now the Historical Society’s museum (one of the museums, anyway), and the “new” station is now a commercial establishment of some sort. The railroad itself is long gone.
Not too far away, the C&O had its ex-Pere Marquette brick station, built around 1930. Very traditional in design–back in the day it was open for 16 hours on weekdays, and served by ticket-agent/operators. I copied my first train-order there, under the tutelage of one of the night guys. The night operator was cut off when the overnight mail trains were discontinued, and the agency was completely closed sometime after all passenger service was eliminated on Amtrak Day. The local section gang still used one end of the building for a while, but it eventually was closed and fell into disrepair. About ten years ago, it was purchased by a high-school classmate of mine, and now houses his dental office and a few other similar establishments. He had an extensive rebuilding job to do (a shingle ro
They turned Union Station into…Enron Field…no, wait, its now Minute Maid Park…center field is where the train shed used to be.
They sell foam rubber hands and ball caps out of what once was the main waiting room.
SP’s Grand Central was bulldozed in the 60s, and is now the Downtown Post Office.
Katy’s station is now part of the University Of Houston.
Amtrak hides its shack under I45…
Cedar Rapids’ train station is but a distant memory for a few fortunate senior citizens. It’s lot is now occupied by a multi-level parking ramp. Marion’s train station is also gone except for the roof, which was moved about 200 feet over and planted on top of a new park pavilion.
My town no longer has its depot. The sad part is, it didn’t die the normal death of a depot. It didn’t rot away without any traffic to serve; the line was and is still a very active MBTA commuter line. No, some idiot decided arson is fun.
Other depots in Massachusetts have faired better, like those in Palmer, MA and Northampton, MA, where they have been converted into restaurants and are well maintained.
Another depot, the one that has my soft spot, stands defiantly in Erving, MA. With many years between now and the last time it saw the likes of a measly Budd run, it had been relegated to some sort of ice cream operation. However, it seems like that was a fluke, and so that big evil thing called Dunkin’ Donuts <Dunkin’ runs on America> (seriously though, i don’t know where i’d be without coffee of any sort from them) had a wonderful plan to tear it down and stick a non-descript coffee shop on top of it. Thankfully, it hasn’t been built yet, but I don’t see any strong, working opposition force, and I personally am in very little position to contribute to any organization thereof (it’s a bit hard to be a guiding force in a preservation attempt for a small depot under seige by a large corporation when you are a teen who lives 50 miles away)
Willy2 I’ve been in that museum a couple of times, and prefer it to the UP museum in Council Bluffs. Why doesn’t some local model railroad club get that awesome layout downstairs working? Isn’t that little railroad museum south of Downtown Council Bluffs also in an old depot(Rock Island, perhaps)?
That layout in the Western Heritage Museum used to work, but then it broke or some such thing and they never did fix it. I’m not sure why they didn’t, but each time I go there I hope it’ll be fixed only to have my hopes dashed.
I think I know of the museum you’re talking about in Council Bluffs and I do believe that it used to be a depot, but I couldn’t tell you if it was Rock Island or not.
I do believe it is the former Rock Island depot…
That’s the one. It had a steam engine outside, that you could climb up in the cab. It also had 100+ railroad books inside![:P] Did you go to the UP museum in Council Bluffs?
There is one like this in Waxahachie,Tx.It is now an a/c company who has kept it in its original condition for years…Across the track is the old Katy depot which was in bad shape the last time I saw it…A few yards away is the H&TC which is a feed co. The Katy depot where I live is the Chamber of Commerce…Still sits by the track but not in the orinal place…I love old depots and bldgs…Danny |
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