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
Historic info:
http://accd.vermont.gov/sites/accd/files/Documents/strongcommunities/historic/nr_nominations/St_Albans_CVRR_HD/VT_Franklin%20Co_Central%20Vermont%20Railroad%20HQ%20HD.pdf
The covered train shed was demolished by 1966.
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
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/structures/index_choice.cfm?id=37&photoid=39212548
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/railways/index_choice.cfm?id=55&photoid=48305705
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/railways/index_choice.cfm?id=55&photoid=1073662655
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/railways/index_choice.cfm?id=55&photoid=37475508
http://www.samessenger.com/railway-express-agency-car-148/
https://archive.org/details/vtpostcards_mc_00055
https://archive.org/details/vtpostcards_mc_00833
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/railways/index_choice.cfm?id=53&photoid=1605072807
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/structures/index_choice.cfm?id=37&photoid=77900020
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/railways/index_choice.cfm?id=55&photoid=-865848423
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/railways/index_choice.cfm?id=57&photoid=1411682864
http://imagescn.techno-science.ca/railways/index_choice.cfm?id=57&photoid=-1274675160
So what on earth possessed them to demolish the train shed?
Incredible.
MiningmanSo what on earth possessed them to demolish the train shed? Incredible.
Doubt that it would clear Plate C or larger cars that were becoming commonplace at the time it was demolished.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
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.
I don't get it...shake my head.
MiningmanBaltACD-- 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. I don't get it...shake my head.
Remember - in the period "railroads are dying and won't be around in 1981' were the prevailing thoughts.
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/265168.aspx
Miningman parallel to the shed outside of the building
parallel to the shed outside of the building
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3jprDojT_k&t=4m49s
Bennington Banner, April 5, 1963
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."
A tragic loss. Like Texas replacing the Alamo with a parking lot....just don't try it anytime soon!
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.
http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/extensions/zoomify.php?ls=31207&sequence=000&set_seq=1&imageSet=1506061444-59c4ac848bd73&AddRel=0
http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/extensions/zoomify.php?ls=19415&sequence=000&set_seq=1&imageSet=1506061464-59c4ac98a1cab&AddRel=0
http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/search/details.php?ls=16430&sequence=000&set_seq=3&imageSet=1506060900-59c4aa640a44c&AddRel=0
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?
"Zoomify” link I meant to put below the 1938 aerial photo. You can see the depth of the train shed and the third mansard-roofed ‘tower’ at the north end of the station. http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/extensions/zoomify.php?ls=16430&sequence=000&set_seq=3&imageSet=1506060900-59c4aa640a44c&AddRel=0
National Register of Historic Places document, so thorough it concludes with a color photo of supermarket shopping carts. Map on page 36 shows the 22 tracks at Lake St. https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/AD_74000211_09_18_2014.pdf
North Adams Transcript, July 25, 1963
ST. ALBANS—Plans are well under way for the participation of the Central Vermont Railway in the St. Albans, Vt., mid-August bicentennial celebration. The CV show during the bicentennial will be Aug. 17. The Canadian National is sending an assortment of its newest freight equipment to St. Albans for display. In addition, eight units of new CN passenger equipment will be in St. Albans for display and also will be operated on four excursion trips during the day between St. Atbans and Alburg, hauled by CV diesel locomotive 4925. Old No. 40, believed to be one of the few remaining woodburning locomotives in North America, will also be on display in the venerable CV trainshed which is 97-years old and scheduled for demolition after the St. Albans bicentennial celebration. Souvenir tickets for the bicentennial excursion trains are being provided and will feature pictures of the old No. 40 and her modern counterpart, Diesel 4925.
Bennington Banner, Sept. 26, 1963
ST. ALBANS (AP)—Demolition of the ancient Central Vermont Railway train shed here has begun. A long list of presidents, former kings, prime ministers and generals have passed through the railroad landmark—the last of its kind in the United States.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2008141
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2715278
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?
Thanks again for all this Wanswheel.
So here is one for Wanswheel....Perhaps Dave K.as well.
Quite the dogs breakfast. Sorry looking weirdly put together train, a shadow of its glory days. Note comment about no diner, but "news cart" service.
CV 8094 (S-2 Alco 69653 12/1941) switching Number 76 Ambassador with B&M 4227 F3A and 4266 F7B.White River Junction, Vermont. 6/07/1965 Ted Houghton
Note: Equipment includes a reclining seat coach NY-Mtl. (looks like second car is a New Haven coach),Headend car a CN mail & express car and a heavyweight dark green car behind the coach. Only News Agent, no diner or sleeper equipment.
CV and B&M rotated switch crews at White River Jct, with second and third trick passenger assignments belonging to one or the other depending on union agreements. The picture must have been taken around 4 PM. The 8094 has just retrieved the B&M F units (B unit is necessary because F2A has no boiler) from B&M's Westboro NH roundhouse across the Connecticut River, using the tracks in the right background. The train would have come in with a CV 4900-series GP9. The CN RPO ran from St. Albans to Springfield. CN had a number of US-usable RPOs, also used on the Portland and Island Pond RPO. It's likely that the Boston RDC will arrive soon, along with the northbound Ambassador, with passengers swapping trains in various directions. The RDC will head north on the Conn River line (on the right of the platfrom next to 8094). By 4:30 all will be quiet again until after midnight when the Washingtonian arrives and picks up the White River Jct - New York (Penn) sleeper.
Thank you rcdrye, great stage by stage and detailed information.
Have not recieved my new issue of Trains yet but I see there is an article/story about the sad state of passenger trains in the 60's.
Despite CN's solo effort at bucking that trend up here that did not seem to translate Stateside, although Chicago, New York and Boston service hung on.
Miningman, I'm sorry you have not yet received your copy of the December Trains. Are the dog sleds runniing into bad running?
Johnny
Deggesty- It can be trying at times but it only adds to the anticipation.
...and yes there are still some folks out there that use dogsleds, not just for competitions. Our trading post sells a fairly large cargo sled that the dogs haul. 700 bucks, sells 3 or 4 a year. I would trust that way more than the Border and the, ahem, geniuses that work at our local contractor for the mail. At least they get it into the right box most of the time. Heh, heh...Mush!
Here's a link to a photo taken in 1960 from a few feet north of where the 1965 picture was taken. B&M RDCs in the background. The RDCs will back to the right onto the Connecticut River bridge before taking the north wye onto the Conn River Line. The track the RDCs are on was removed in the late 1960s. In Wells River one of the RDCs will be uncoupled and run up to Berlin NH, the other will head for Montreal.
CN coaches on Ambassador are probably from the 1956 CCF order. 4228 and sister 4227 (in the other photo) are F3s, not F2s.
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/563053/
Having been the acoustical consultant for Dartmouth's Hopkins Performing Arts Center, used the White River Junction station almost as often as that at Concord, N. H., using both the RDC Allouette and the Dartmouth College I and II, the B & M 4 & 14 (?) sleepers assigned to Penn-NY - WRJc. on the Montrealler-Washingtonian.
rcdrye CV and B&M rotated switch crews at White River Jct, with second and third trick passenger assignments belonging to one or the other depending on union agreements. The picture must have been taken around 4 PM. The 8094 has just retrieved the B&M F units (B unit is necessary because F2A has no boiler) from B&M's Westboro NH roundhouse across the Connecticut River, using the tracks in the right background. ...
CV and B&M rotated switch crews at White River Jct, with second and third trick passenger assignments belonging to one or the other depending on union agreements. The picture must have been taken around 4 PM. The 8094 has just retrieved the B&M F units (B unit is necessary because F2A has no boiler) from B&M's Westboro NH roundhouse across the Connecticut River, using the tracks in the right background. ...
Why was a switcher needed to retrieve the F units?
MidlandMikeWhy was a switcher needed to retrieve the F units?
That's not entirely clear, though it was probably a yard/road crew work rule distinction. The northbound Ambassador had probably left about 10 minutes before either of the shots were made, as it was scheduled to depart at 4.
On the other side of the station building where the Boston track crossed the Conn River, there was a ball signal which remained in use until the crossing was removed. The switch tender there was a three shift position, manned by the B&M.
OGs usually show B&M 6sec6rmt4DBR cars. Two of the Beach series were renamed "Dartmouth College I" and "Dartmouth College II"
Thanks. Remembered the names better than the configuration. After all, it was the College that eventually was funding my enjoyable train rides to and from Hanover via the White River Junction station. Off topic but here is a photo of the Spaulding concert hall/lecture hall before the need to handle loud ampified popular music added large additional exposed loudspeakers, which can be seen on the College's website. The Austin organ is at the right, at the left is a control booth for recording and broadcasing. The upstage wall is a pair of heavy wood sliding panels, which when parted reveal a perforated motion picture screen, behind which is the motion picture loudspeaker system. The place in the panel array where lights are missing is a grill behind which is the hidden original speech reinforcement amplification system. The hall was opened in 1962, when there still was reasonable train service. I started work on the project in 1959. The architects were Harrison and Abromovitz, and Walter Colvin was project manager and did much of the design work. Warner Bentley was the Hopkins Center's first Director, and was Dartmouth's representative for the project.
Anyone able post a picture of either of the cars? Would love to have it to go along with a picture of the hall!
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