Your hometown Railroad Station pictures

[Miningman]

Here's a (somewhat) interesting idea. How about we start an album about our hometown, (or adopted home town, whatever you identify yourself with),  railway station pictures with a brief description, story or just the picture. The place you saw the trains and all the comings and goings in your earlier years. I will start. 

Simcoe

The Wabash and the Pere Marquette came through with trackage rights along with of course the Canadian National.  I recall steam on all three. Later it was the Norfolk and Western and the Chesapeake and Ohio. Everything you see here is gone, the magnificient station, all the tracks, the whole line abandoned and tore up. The Last train I ever saw through here was on a snowy day just after New Years Day ( visiting family). It was a Norfolk and Western train with GP7 or 9's up front and a bay window caboose on the tail end. 1980-81. The station did not change in appearance one bit over the years.  Pictures of the Simcoe station are quite hard to find, this being a depiction way back before my time when it was the Grand Trunk but already theWabash and Pere Marquette were coming through. Little known fact was the Wabash ran a passenger train solely contained within Canada along this line. Up to the early 60's you could book a sleeper to just about anywhere in North America from here, using connections of course. Now there is nothing. Today you need to take a hellish drive on a jam packed 401/ QEW to Pearson International way off in Toronto, endure humiliating security, board a stinky airplane and hope you do not get the middle seat next to a guy wearing shorts and hairy legs. Thats progress. 

Just before the station to the West a couple of hundred feet away from this picture was the diamond with the Canadian Pacific Electric Lines, Lake Erie and Northern. To the North about 3 miles was the New York Central CASO which parallels this route from Detroit to Niagara Falls/Buffalo. All of that is gone as well. 

Sigh

[Enzoamps]

Brunswick, MD.  I don't live there,but it was my favorite place to watch trains growing up.

[daveklepper]

Now an entertainment center.  May the trains return!

[DSchmitt]

Westetn Pacific Marysville CA around 1975

Image23 by Donald Schmitt, on Flickr

Image12 by Donald Schmitt, on Flickrhttp://users.snowcrest.net/photobob/sn21.jpg

 1962 http://users.snowcrest.net/photobob/sn20.jpg

 

 

 

 

1962   http://users.snowcrest.net/photobob/sn21.jpg

[DSchmitt]

Southern Pacific Station Marysville CA from

https://www.cardcow.com/84118/southern-pacific-depot-marysville-california/

 

 

 

[DSchmitt]

Sacramento Northern Station Yuba City CA

 

http://users.snowcrest.net/photobob/sn6.jpg

 

[Firelock76]

I grew up in Paramus NJ, which was right in the middle of Erie country, however the Erie Railroad never came through our town.  It did, however, seem to hit towns all around us.

Just to the east is the town of River Edge, and here's the station...

http://www.subwaynut.com/njt/river_edge/index.php

And to the west of us was Ridgewood...

http://www.subwaynut.com/njt/ridgewood/index.html

A sentimental favorite of mine is the Tenafly NJ railroad station, a spectacular piece of Gilded Age architechture.  Tenafly is my father's home town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenafly_(Erie_Railroad_station)

Both River Edge and Ridgewood are active stations for New Jersey Transit rail.  The tracks through Tenafly are owned by CSX and are moribund, most likely to be abandoned soon.

 

My mother's home town is New York City, so she had Grand Central and Pennsylvania Stations, but you all know about those two!

 

[BaltACD]

My early childhood was spent in Newark, OH with my father being a Assistant Trainmaster there for the B&O

 

I currently live in Sykesville - 
Station as it is today known as Baldwins Station a fine food place.

The former B&P Tower that controlled one end of the PRR's Penn Station in Baltimore was moved out to Sykesville and set up adjacent to the B&O station.  The bottom of the tower is now a Post Office, the top of the tower is a meeting room for the community.

 

[Miningman]

Holy Mackinaw...these are some great looking stations...I'm jealous.

[Firelock76]

I should have mentioned this earlier but the site I got the River Edge and Ridgewood station photo spread from is...

www.subwaynut.com

An amazing site, it's apparantly the mans mission to photograph every transit/rail station in North America, and he's well on his way.  There's shots from Canada as well, plus a few from Buenos Aires.  Well worth a look.

[Penny Trains]

I gotta go with Cleveland Union Terminal.

[gregc]

Whippany, NJ

[Firelock76]

Magnificent shot Becky!  And what a coincidence, I was just re-reading Don Ball's "Decade Of The Trains" and there on page 224 is Cleveland Union Terminal and it's Terminal Tower, all 52 stories of it.  At it's completion in 1930 (according to Don) it was the tallest structure west of Manhattan.

[Firelock76]

If I remember right, Whippany's on the old Lackawanna.  You can tell it's Lackawanna by the way that station's put together, the Lackawanna built to last!

[Enzoamps]

A very few miles downriver from Brunswick, MD is Point of Rocks, MD.  We passed it driving home from Brunswick.  The fine old station there shows up more often than we might think.  The near tracks going left are the old main line to Baltimore, while the tracks on the far side head left to Washington DC.  Point of Rocks is where they join, and to the right are the tracks towards Cumberland.   I always make sure my nose is pressed to the window as we roll through on the Capital Limited.

[Deggesty]

Enzoamps

A very few miles downriver from Brunswick, MD is Point of Rocks, MD.  We passed it driving home from Brunswick.  The fine old station there shows up more often than we might think.  The near tracks going left are the old main line to Baltimore, while the tracks on the far side head left to Washington DC.  Point of Rocks is where they join, and to the right are the tracks towards Cumberland.   I always make sure my nose is pressed to the window as we roll through on the Capital Limited.

 

Yes, it's a lovely station, and I enjoy seeing it both ways when I go to the South.

[selector]

This is the E&N Ry station at it's northern terminus in Courtenay, Vancouver Island.  The RDC ran until 2012 when service was suspended due to embargoed tracks and bridge structures.  Money was arranged, except the Federal portion never seemed to be forthcoming.  Then local municipalities got annoyed and withdrew their own offers.  It's all in limbo, but I'd say it's moribund...badly so.

[pajrr]

 

My hometown station was the Erie Railroad station in Fair Lawn, NJ. I grew up here watching Erie Lackawanna, Conrail, NJ Transit and NS for over 50 years. This past summer the station received a new slate roof and waiting room ceiling / cleanup. The station was built in 1930 and is a registered landmark. My hometown station looks good as new!

[Deggesty]

selector

This is the E&N Ry station at it's northern terminus in Courtenay, Vancouver Island.  The RDC ran until 2012 when service was suspended due to embargoed tracks and bridge structures.  Money was arranged, except the Federal portion never seemed to be forthcoming.  Then local municipalities got annoyed and withdrew their own offers.  It's all in limbo, but I'd say it's moribund...badly so.

 

I find it quite sad that this line currently has no operation on it. My wife and I made three trips; the first was from Victoria to Nanaimo (and back by bus because we had a time constraint (ferry from Seattle and back)); the second was a round trip covering the entire line to Courtney, and the third was from Nanaimo (bus from Vancouver) to Courtney and then down to Victoria (then bus back to Vancouver.

[rcdrye]

Since we've already posted several of White River Junction Vt.  Here's my even closer station - Windsor Mt. Ascutney (just Windsor to the CV) just north of the dividing line between the CV/NECR Rockingham Sub, and the CV/NECR Palmer Sub (former B&M Conn River Main Line).

looking north.

 

[pajrr]

Here are a couple stations along the old Erie Railroad Northern Branch. The large one is Tenafly, NJ (now a restaurant) and the one that looks like a church is Demarest, NJ.

[Firelock76]

Thanks for those pictures pajrr!  Aren't those stations gorgeous?  Built for the ages.

See where those cars are parked at the Tenafly station?  That's where the old Public Service (Originally Bergen County Traction Co.)  Englewood Line trolleys from the Edgewater Ferry Terminal used to terminate.  The line was abandoned in 1937. 

[wanswheel]

http://www.godfatherrails.com/photos/pv.asp?pid=1148

http://www.godfatherrails.com/photos/pv.asp?pid=1149

[AgentKid]

I couldn't think of whatever current thread would be most appropriate, so I will mention it here. I wanted to make a comment about the Photo of the Day from last week, "Small Town Station Ritual".

I really can't remember anything about railroading before seeing a CPR Combine and Caboose standing in front of our station at Irricana, AB. Sadly, business wasn't usually this good by the time I can remember scenes like this.

Bruce

 

[Miningman]

Wanswheel--- You grew up in Davenport, Iowa, or were very familiar with it? Nice station in any case. Long Live the Rock.

AgentKid-- CPR maroon of any type, combine or not, was a fixture across the land, something I thought was eternal. 

[Penny Trains]

I would have nominated the Berea depot:

But I'm a bit saddened by it's current status:

 

[Miningman]

Yolks! Yikes! That's about as bad as it can be. Maybe add in a bus with chickens in crates on the roof.

So where are we here? Ohio?

[wanswheel]

Miningman

Davenport, Iowa

Born there, lived there 6 years. First train trip at age 3, always remembered.

[SD70M-2Dude]

My hometown of Camrose, Alberta boasted three railways and their stations for a time very early on, but of course it was too good to last.  First to go was the Grand Trunk Pacific, after the Canadian National merger the ex-GTP line through town was abandoned and trains rerouted to use the ex-CNoR line and station. 

Canadian Pacific's original classic wood station lasted until 1956 (a few years before passenger service ended), when it was replaced with a brick-shaped cinder block building similar to an Amshack (CP was ahead of the times?).  That building has since been demolished too, small photos of both are on this site:

http://forthjunction.ca/cpr-stations.htm

The ex-Canadian Northern (later CN) station has been far more fortunate, it saw passenger service until 1980 and today has been beautifully restored into a museum:

The last passenger service was CN/VIA's central Alberta dayliners to Calgary and Drumheller (the ex-CP Edmonton-Calgary dayliner did not go through Camrose, and lasted until 1985).  The train would leave Edmonton with two budd cars, which would be split at Camrose with one following the ex-GTP line to Mirror and Calgary, and the other taking the ex-CNoR line through Stettler and Big Valley to Drumheller.

Due to the late end of this passenger service multiple stations have survived in good condition, and have been restored by the Canadian Northern Society:

http://canadiannorthern.ca/

The stations at Stettler and Big Valley are still used by summer excursion trains operated by the Alberta Prairie Railway.  An excellent outing if you ever have a summer day to spend in central Alberta.

[Deggesty]

Sude, that's a lovely station. Did the agent and his family live upstairs?