I found the following picture on the Fallen Flags website that piqued my curiosity:
Anyone know what the identical two-story structures in the background might have been used for? The location and date the photograph was taken was unknown.
Thanks...
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Looks like they may be freight elevators. They're just big enough to handle a baggage cart.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Mike's right.
Those are the elevator shafts to a subway or directly to the baggage/express room. The equipment house on top contains the motor/winch and control equipment. NYC had a few others like this in other stations. East Cleveland and Erie come to mind.
I believe this is Springfield, Mass. and the structures are STILL there... (at the time of this photo)
Baggage elevators, with a tunnel under the tracks to the baggage room - and possibly the local post office.
Old Hakata (Fukuoka) station had an overhead baggage elevator something like the high lines used to build the Hoover Dam. I loaded up more than one baggage cart with mail, only to have it go swinging over everything on two intervening platforms with the greatest of ease to reach either the truck we were going to take it back to Itazuke in or the spot where the storage car would stop.
Hakata, like all JNR stations, had high platforms. Unlike most high platform stations, the platform tracks were a series of equal-radius curves. Not much problem for passengers getting on or de-training at the car-end vestibules, but downright hazardous when working cars with doors in the middle of the carbody.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Thanks, fellask! I had noticed the passenger cars andn platform near by so that makes sense. Always something new to learn.