Too bad the trainshed portion of St. Albans was torn down in the early Amtrak era. It sounds like ATK is using a smaller former customs building for their station.
I sometimes wonder if the indignities thrust upon a couple of our old passenger depots aren't worse than letting them go. The IC depot has been gutted and remodeled 4 or 5 times that I can recall, and not very nicely done. The Milwaukee Road depot has had the high pitched roof hacked off and has been a restaurant, office building, and now half way house. It's not a pretty sight.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Fantastic pictures and discussion in the article. Thanks, Wanswheel.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
ICAC, St. Albans train shed is on Classic Trains forum, too.
http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/232462.aspx
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=411971&nseq=0
Article from Trains magazine, June 1958
St. Albans – An Architectural Classic
by Jim Shaughnessy
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. It covers four tracks and enables passengers to board or leave trains completely sheltered from Vermont elements. The main station and office building rises to the right of the trainshed, beside a nicely landscaped garden. This red brick structure, built in 1866-67, should be, by modern standards of ceiling height, at least four stories high. Standards and proportions have changed in the last 90 years though, and the building actually contains only two stories. At the north end, adjacent to and on the same side as the larger structure, is located a one story portion containing the waiting room and ticket office, lunch room, and baggage and express handling facilities. To the left of the station building are the shop buildings – the same vintage as the station – of the original Vermont Central Railway. Two blocks farther up the pike have been built more modern engine facilities, shops and a roundhouse.
St. Albans, in the northwestern corner of Vermont, is an old city: home of the railroad building Smith family of Vermont, and the scene of the famed St. Albans raid. In October 1864 Confederate soldiers disguised as citizens raided the city and escaped to Canada with bank loot of $200,000. This raid was the northernmost of any such skirmish during the Civil War. Today St. Albans is a quiet New England agricultural town. It has the usual feed mill and dairy, and other than the railroad it has only one major industry, the Eveready flashlight factory.
Let’s look more closely at the station itself. The trainshed is completely open and has no columns on the inside. The 88-foot width is spanned by wooden trusses built by the noted bridge builder, William Howe. These Howe trusses are very unusual in design. They differ from those found in old covered bridges in that they have curved upper and lower chords. The panels of the roof trusses follow the curve and bracing design of the arch, and the X’s are smaller in the center than on the ends. The X timbers (or compression members) are wood; the upright members (or tension members) are iron rods in pairs. Boon nuts at the end of these rods can be tightened or slackened to adjust the arched Howe truss.
This type of truss was invented as a bridge truss in 1840 by Howe, a mechanic-carpenter-contractor from Spencer, Mass. (He was the uncle of Elias Howe of sewing machine fame). Howe first built bridges for the Western Railroad (later Boston and Albany), including that company’s great bridge across the Connecticut River at Springfield. In 1842, he was called to Boston to design a new roof for the Boston and Worcester depot there (torn down in 1900). It was there that he built the first type of Howe truss with arches such as those found in the roof of the St. Albans shed.
Other trainshed roofs of the Howe truss type were built later – using all iron by companies to whom Howe assigned the use of his patents. Most of these were operated out of Springfield, Mass. by relatives of his. They took the Howe truss bridge and the roof truss with them in expanding railroads across the West. Trainshed roofs of this type were built in, among other places, Buffalo, Rochester, Troy, Springfield, Reading and Chicago. The Michigan Southern engine house in Chicago, destroyed by the great Chicago fire, had a roof of this type.
The St. Albans trainshed of 1866-67 was built by the firm of Harris and Hawkins of Springfield, Mass. Daniel Harris was a bridge builder, contractor, engineer, and one-time president of the Connecticut River Railroad. Richard F. Hawkins started as an office boy in 1853 with one of the Howe bridge building companies. He worked up to partner and later, in 1868, became owner of the R.F Hawkins Iron Works of Springfield, Mass., and St. Albans, Vt.
The trusses were built on the ground, then raised into place by means of gin poles, block and tackle, mule and muscle power. The brick walls, made of local brick, have buttresses on the outside to support the load brought to the walls at the point of the truss. Iron tie rods, called bowstrings, run horizontally from one end of the truss to the other, keeping the load from kicking the ends off the bearing plates as the trusses tend to flatten out. The roof, made of 2-inch boards running parallel to the trusses, is fastened to purlins running the 20 feet between the trusses. Although the exposed wood in the roof structure is somewhat dingy today, in the past it was kept whitewashed. This brightened the interior, but the main purpose was to protect the wood from the sparks emanating from the funnels of passing locomotives. Smoke from locomotives could escape through louvers running the length of the roof in a skylight sort of structure located at the top.
The office building part of the station, which is 120 feet long and 70 feet wide, has a tower three stories high at each end. Each has a Mansard-type roof. In the old days the building had a number of fireplaces for heating, and the larger, or eastern, tower had a clock with raised hands. The trainshed also had a small two story hexagonal tower, or minaret, at the southwest corner. Some of the chimneys were removed from the office building when central heating was installed.
Upon walking through the door with the words GENERAL OFFICES and the maple leaf crest, one enters a large hall with gleaming woodwork and floors. Each side is lined by various offices, including that for the dispatcher for the entire system. On the left at the middle of the hall is a gigantic maple staircase which practically glitters like gold. The second floor hallway is like the first floor’s – with pictures and scenes on the lines of both CV and the parent Canadian National. At the east end a door leads to the office of General Manager D.M. Kerr; and therein lies a conference room with green carpeting and mahogany furniture in which top level conferences are held.
The one story portion containing the modernized waiting room and ticket office is 263 feet by 27 feet. The entire structure occupies 46,000 square feet, or just over an acre.
Why was such a spectacular structure built in an out-of-the-way place like St. Albans? How is it that it still stands today? This is the second station at St. Albans; it was built during the presidency of J. Gregory Smith. Smith lived in St. Albans. He was an influential and wealthy man, president of the railroad; naturally he wanted his home town to have the best depot on the line. The structure was also to be the location of the company’s new main offices. A vast plant was built at St. Albans, including car and locomotive shops which are still standing and in use today.
The station has endured the years for several reasons. It was built of the best materials in the first place, and in the ensuing years it has been well cared for and properly maintained. In addition, St. Albans has not grown into a metropolis as have other cities which had big trainsheds. Downtown congestion doesn’t exist here. The station has passed the critical age at which it is just an old building; it is now in the category of an antique. Efforts would tend to preserve, possibly even to restore, the honored old edifice rather than to raze it. It has come to be a landmark.
Business has dropped somewhat since the year ending December 31, 1868, in which 2,606,880 pounds of butter, 948,276 pounds of cheese, and 14,102 cases of mineral water were shipped. Today, six trains a day pass through the shed on their runs between Washington, D.C., Boston and Montreal. As each train pauses, the railway mail clerk picks up the mail from the box on the inside wall near the main office. Passengers board, baggage and express are loaded, and the conductor’s booming voice echoes in the darkness – “All aboard!”
As the train, pulled by diesels, fades into the night one can imagine that the fumes are wood smoke and that the stainless steel New Haven Pullman is an open ender with green velvet upholstery.
Excerpt from Rock Products, December 4, 1920
Railroad Also Values Whitewash
On a recent trip to St. Albans, Vt. the editor was struck with the excellent condition of the trainshed roof of the Central Vermont Ry. station. A view of this is shown herewith. C.E. Donaldson, supervisor of bridges and buildings of this railway, states:
Our records show that train shed was built in 1868 and there have been no repairs or renewals to trusses since erection of building. Same has been whitewashed on an average of once in four years. Am unable to advise you what formula has been used but at the present time we are using just common whitewash similar to that used on cattle guards, stock yards, etc.
You ask my opinion in regard to using whitewash as a timber preservative. I am satisfied from personal experience that it does preserve our native timber such as spruce, hemlock and other soft wood. Every engineer and architect knows that a trainshed roof is the hardest possible service any structural material can be put to, yet here we have a roof, possibly the oldest of its kind in this country, still in A-1 condition after more than half a century of service. Not only are the timbers in an excellent state of preservation but the iron bolts and rods are equally well preserved from the corrosive gases of the locomotives. Lime whitewash did it.
And so doubtless one could find other sections of the country where old-fashioned practices have held on despite of the propaganda of modern paint manufacturers until today we are forced to admit their virtues and are just beginning to see a return to those practices by people who are being educated to the fact that things need not be discarded just because they are old.
Youtube has a shaky view of the station from a southbound train, starting at 4:50.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3jprDojT_k
I toured the EBT facilities a couple years ago. It truly a museum of American railroading. The machine shop run by central power with shafts to each machine brought back memories of my grandfather's cabinet shop. The roundhouse houses several great locomotives, some which could be put back in service after the federally mandated inspections. Unfortunately most of the buildings are in a bad state. Most lean and need to be repaired/stabilized. It would be a shame to see this great historical site disappear. If you go there the Rockhill trolley museum next door is well worth visiting and they have trolley rides on a section of the EBT track that has been rebuilt to standard gage.
The huge C.P.R. station in Moose Jaw ,Saskatchewan was in disrepair for years and just in time the Government stepped up and converted it a Government operated liquor store, possibly the largest in North America, all liqor stores in Saskatchewan are owned by the provincial Government.
Dragoman BaltACD For any 'Jem' to be retained it must have a economic use, either it's original purpose or a repurposed use. The economic use is what provides the funds to keep the 'Jem' in repair. Well, there is the concept of historical and/or artistic preservation, and social or cultural utility. Museums and libraries, for example, are not generally considered to have "economic use"but are generally considered to be important to society. But I think I do understand what you are saying: if you put a museum or library into an old depot, that is the "economic use". Trying to save a building for its own sake, without regard to what it will contribute to society, or where the "economic use" that will provide the funding to do so will come from, may be futile.
BaltACD For any 'Jem' to be retained it must have a economic use, either it's original purpose or a repurposed use. The economic use is what provides the funds to keep the 'Jem' in repair.
For any 'Jem' to be retained it must have a economic use, either it's original purpose or a repurposed use. The economic use is what provides the funds to keep the 'Jem' in repair.
Well, there is the concept of historical and/or artistic preservation, and social or cultural utility. Museums and libraries, for example, are not generally considered to have "economic use"but are generally considered to be important to society.
But I think I do understand what you are saying: if you put a museum or library into an old depot, that is the "economic use". Trying to save a building for its own sake, without regard to what it will contribute to society, or where the "economic use" that will provide the funding to do so will come from, may be futile.
Museums and libraries are economic uses - maybe not uses with a high ROI, but uses nevertheless. A vacant 'jem' that remains vacant does not have a economic use.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Since the original construction, additions upward, have perhaps made NYO&W Middletown station less gem-like. It's encouraging that the former Erie station in town has been saved as the public library.
MidlandMike I don't know if you could consider it an architectural gem, but the NYO&W Middletown station is historic. It had some fire damage to the north end of the station about 10 years ago. A health clinic is trying to get a grant to rehab it.
I don't know if you could consider it an architectural gem, but the NYO&W Middletown station is historic. It had some fire damage to the north end of the station about 10 years ago. A health clinic is trying to get a grant to rehab it.
Excerpt from Engineering News, December 29, 1892
Railway Station at Middletown, N.Y.
The elevation and plan here given show the railway station now under construction at Middletown, N.Y. by the New York, Ontario & Western R.R. Co. from the plans of Mr. Bradford L. Gilbert of New York.
The building is 174 ft. long and 44 ft. wide with a rear extension of 30 ft. in length for kitchen, an extensive awning, an independent express and trainmen's room at the north end and a port-cochere. On the first floor are the general waiting room, woman's waiting room, restaurant, ticket office, toilet-room and other rooms for baggage and trainmen. The general waiting room is 30 x 30 ft. and both this and the woman's room are finished with a red oak wainscoting 12 ft. high; all above this and the ceiling is finished in white spruce. The floors in these two rooms are made of red oak and all other floors of Georgia pine. The restaurant is 90 ft. long by 30 ft. wide with news and cigar stands. There are open fires in this and in the waiting rooms in addition to the regular steam heating appliances.
The second floor is devoted to the railway offices including rooms for the chief and assistant engineers, superintendent of motive power, train despatcher, roadmaster and various clerks and draftsmen. All these rooms are well lighted and heated and in both the second and third stories fire proof vaults of brick and iron are provided for the storage of valuable records.
http://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/14000129.htm
https://akronrrclub.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/how-do-you-move-an-old-depot-very-carefully/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dqDAPKpZrY
The Casa Grande station article is interesting for several reasons, such as the construction company still being in business all these years later. However, of even more note to my way of thinking, the company was given 90 days to build the station. Ninety days! I don't know about where you live, but in Ohio or Connecticut nothing can be done in 90 days. A bridge over CSX tracks and a small river took 3 or more years here. In New Haven, a simple bridge estimated to cost $5m and take a year is now at $25m, 5 years, and still under construction. These kinds of delays and cost overruns that we're getting used to would not have been tolerated years ago. Where're the likes of Henry J. Kaiser or Geo. W. Goethals when we need them?
However, on a happy note, the former W&LE depot in Kent, Ohio was recently threatened with demolition. This 1881 structure is part of the fabric in a town that takes its railroad heritage seriously. A business man across the street bought the depot, had it lifted up and trucked to his property, and will soon have it permanently sited across the tracks and street from its former location. Though the new owner has no immediate plans for the wooden depot, he is quoted as having said he bought and moved it simply because he liked it and thought it would be a shame to see it demolished. How's that for an example of good citizenship?
tree68 It's kind of ironic, in a way - these gems are destroyed, yet I can think of several old wooden stations in this area that still stand, turned to other uses, with nary a rail in sight...
It's kind of ironic, in a way - these gems are destroyed, yet I can think of several old wooden stations in this area that still stand, turned to other uses, with nary a rail in sight...
Many smaller wooden stations survive throughout the country because they were smaller and more suitable for reuse and convenient to move. The railroad museum I am affiliated with is an old 1871 station. When the railroad didn't need it anymore a farmer picked it up (literally) and moved it to his farm as a storage building. The station only served the railroad 33 years. It has been in private hands for 110 years. As a matter of fact, when it was acquired for use as a museum it was moved a second time, almost right back to where it stood during its railroad career.
It’s interesting that the construction company that built the Casa Grande station still exists.
http://www.sundt.com/projects/vista-grande-high-school/
Casa Grande Dispatch, September 8, 1939
Ground Broken For New Depot Building
Sundt Crew Arrives And Starts Work
Contract Required Job Be Completed In Next 90 Days
Ground was broken yesterday by the M. M. Sundt Construction Company for the new Southern Pacific depot as actual construction was started on the structure which will replace the building destroyed by fire more than two years ago. Railroad engineers completed their surveying early this week and yesterday morning freight cars arrived with the material and equipment of the contractors and a crew of workman started to work.
The contract which was awarded to the Tucson construction concern several weeks ago requires completion of the building within 90 days after start of work so the building should be in use about December.
The new structure will feature an architectural design fully expressive of this region, A. A. Lowe, superintendent of the railroads Tucson division, said this week.
Embodying commodious quarters for the accommodation of the traveling public the new station will also provide ample facilities for the transaction of railroad business, Lowe said.
The building, 208 feet by 22 feet 6 inches, is of frame construction, its textured stucco exterior surfaces being enriched with ornamental precast cement decorations in color based upon Indian motifs. Office and waiting room are combined in a single large room divided by an oak counter of distinctive design. The walls are of textured stucco and the ceiling is of acoustical material. The cornice in this room will be decorated in bright colors to carry out further the Indian motif. Floors are to be of colored cement in tile design.
The large windows will set in steel sills fitted with Venetian blinds and the lighting fixtures have been especially designed to further the scheme of decoration according to the specifications.
Comfortable temperature the year around within the building will be obtained by use of a cooling system of the evaporative type or a heating system burning gas. Both will be equipped with blowers to give rapid circulation of air.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
wanswheel The first Casa Grande station also burned, according to book: http://books.google.com/books?id=TmGbpJDOkF0C
The first Casa Grande station also burned, according to book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=TmGbpJDOkF0C
Thanks for posting the photos. As you can see, at one time it was a beautiful structure, as least in the eyes of those who admire the architecture of the Southwest.
As early as the 1950's, only one train, the Argonaut, served Casa Grande, the others taking the Phoenix Sub.
John Timm
dakotafred A bitter pill -- and so untypical of U.P. -- was demolition of the brick depot in North Platte shortly after Amtrak. I suppose the idea was to get it off the tax rolls. Maybe also inoculation against Amtrak trying to restore service to the Overland Route one day. U.P. didn't need the space for anything else; today it's a park. Besides being handsome, North Platte was famous for its informal canteen for the troop trains during World War II, by which the good ladies of the area met every train with baked goods and other treats.
A bitter pill -- and so untypical of U.P. -- was demolition of the brick depot in North Platte shortly after Amtrak. I suppose the idea was to get it off the tax rolls. Maybe also inoculation against Amtrak trying to restore service to the Overland Route one day. U.P. didn't need the space for anything else; today it's a park.
Besides being handsome, North Platte was famous for its informal canteen for the troop trains during World War II, by which the good ladies of the area met every train with baked goods and other treats.
UP offered the historic pueblo style depot at Casa Grande, AZ to the city, provided they move it off site in preparation for the two-tracking project on the Gila Sub. It was determined that the structure, built in 1939, was too deteriorated and too costly to move. In 2009 it was destroyed as the result of a suspicious fire set in an adjacent pile of ties.
At some point in the past, I posted a photo on the Trains forum. At the moment, I cannot locate it here or in my files. At any rate, it was a beautiful example of area architecture and a real loss when it burned.
"Appointment with Danger", isn't it?
Mention of Gary reminded me that I saw an old film noire starring Alan Ladd a long time ago. A good bit of footage was shot at the Gary station, including some footage of NYC L4 Mohawks. Wish I could remember the name of that film.
Tom
SALfanWhen was the station in Ellicott City built? As an interesting tidbit, the oldest surviving RR station in Florida (though no longer in use as a RR station) is at Lloyd, about 25 miles east of Tallahassee. It was built in 1858, and rebuilt in I believe 1946 after a major fire.
1830-31. The station at Lloyd is a post office nowadays.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMBVNZ_Lloyd_Railroad_Depot_Lloyd_FL
Gary Union Station is probably not worth preserving for a variety of reasons. The building itself has no really distinguishing features, it has been deteriorating for decades (it was already in bad shape in 1969 when I boarded a B&O train to Chicago at that location), and it has a poor location hemmed in between the Toll Road and the U. S. Steel Gary Works. The last point is probably what makes any attempt at preservation difficult to justify.
Gary is a tough one, but on a far smaller scale than the other two. Not sure exactly how it could be reused, but I wish they'd at least secure it from the elements. It might not have a place in 2014, but it's a beautiful building with a facade and basic structure that is in great shape.
Expending a little bit of effort into protecting it might give it a chance someday down the road. I don't think they talk about it, but I think that's the goal with the Buffalo folks as well. They want it secured and are fighting a holding action in the hope that someday, it will get its chance.
They'd love a miracle to happen in the next few years, but I think the realist there realize that what they've been doing in recent years is with an eye towards hopefully the building being in the right place and time decades from now.
They're just trying to protect it to hopefully get it to that day eventually.
Another union station that probably ranks right up with Detroit and Buffalo in the deplorability factor is at Gary, Indiana. It was made of concrete, so would be hard to demolish. It's situated right between the old NYC and the old B&O (the location would be better for train-watching than the one I camped out at last month), but there is no convenient parking, probably no safe way to get to trackside any more (the trains were "upstairs" from the waiting room), and it's virtually inaccessible. There was talk about making it a welcoming center or something for the area (maybe the dunes to the east), but nothing was done on that. It is not far from the existing transit center, which includes the NICTD station. Demolition, if it were done, would be non-productive, because the land it occupies is virtually worthless to anyone save the railroads.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.