Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Corpus Christi, Texas ex-San Antonio Uvalde & Gulf/ ex-Gulf Coast Lines (Missouri Pacific) now used as UP office
Corpus Christi, Texas Tex Mex tourist train depot of 1980s- tourist information center 2 miles from original site
Kingsville, Texas- community museum
Ingleside, Texas- was Chamber of Commerce visitor center 1 mile from original site, now used for storage
Rockport, Texas- was dance studio, offshore-marine electronics store, now vacant
Laredo, Texas TexMex (1880s) railroad offices?
1986 photo
Alice, Texas TexMex vacant
Pleasanton Texas- community history museum
Brownsville, Texas- historical museum with 100 year old loco preserved indoors (but no photos allowed!)
Hebbronville Texas- unknown if still standing
My current home(town) hasn't had a depot in years - the joint GTW-NYC station was vandalized and burned down in the '70s, I believe.
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Stations/CountyStations/OaklandStations/OxfordMI.htm
The nearest active depot is in Lapeer, 15 miles north up the state highway. It has been restored to its original condition and is used for municipal events (meetings, etc.) and Amtrak's Bluewater (#364/365) stops there on its back-and-forth run to Chicago.
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Stations/CountyStations/LapeerStations/LapeerArea/LapeerMI-GTWStation.htm
The old NYC depot in town is still standing, but I believe it's vacant - previously used as a real estate office (not much business there anymore).
http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Stations/CountyStations/LapeerStations/LapeerArea/LapeerMI-MCStation.htm
Other than that, pretty much everything else in the area has been torn down. The old NYC Lake Orion depot site is now an Autozone location. However, a new tire dealer built their shop to look like a depot, just north of the original location. Kind of neat, even if it never was a real station.
I've got more pictures I took at Elkins in my gallery... Lots of other depots in there, too. Sort of a hobby unto itself...
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
There were actually two or three depots here in the Bryan/College Station area. The town(s) and college were served by both the International & Great Northern (later absorbed into Missouri Pacific) and Houston & Texas Central (later Southern Pacific). I believe both lines had depots adjacent to the Texas A&M campus, hence the name "College Station." Bryan had at least one freight depot, and I'm pretty sure that there was originally a passenger station there as well.
Sadly, all of them are long gone. The SP depot's location at A&M is now in the middle of a road, the MoPac depot's location there is now a parking lot. Bryan's depots were torn down long ago, so the only one that I'm even certain of the original location of is the old MoPac freight depot.
There is a replica of the SP depot that was built as an art gallery, complete with a restored 1905 caboose. You can see it at http://www.benjaminknox.com/arch_design.asp?pid=7.
Robert Beaty
The Laughing Hippie
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The CF-7...a waste of a perfectly good F-unit!
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the
end of your tunnel, Was just a freight train coming
your way. -Metallica, No Leaf Clover
The old depots on the nearest RR (UP - ex CNW - Northwest Line) are all gone in my area; replaced by new depots for the commuters.
The oldest depot in Chicagoland in Marengo Illinois was moved to the next town east, Union, and is the main depot at the Illinois Railway Museum; it sees heavier service than it ever did as a C&NW depot.
My original hometown was Cedar Rapids, IA. At one time it had a large downtown depot served by the C&NW. Had is the operative word, as it was demolished in the 60's to make way for a downtown parking garage.
In the community where I live today, there are three surviving depots. The ex MILW Road depot in Davenport, IA survives as a community and visitor's center. The old CRI&P depot in Rock Island, IL underwent hard times until it was purchased by a private company, restored, and today is used as a banquet hall for weddings and catered events.
http://www.theabbeyhotel.com/Abbey_Station.html
The last surviving depot is the old Burlington Depot in Moline, IL. It has served for years as a visitor's center, though it's days may now be numbered. It sets perilously close to where the proposed new I-74 Mississippi River bridge will go.
My most unusual story comes from the community of Galesburg, IL, about 60 miles south of where I live. It concerns the old Burlington RR depot which was torn down in the 1980's to make way for... a railroad depot. Yep, Galesburg is a major AMTRAK stop, and they had the old depot dismantled in favor of a smaller structure which is reportedly based on the architecture of the first RR depot built in the community in the 1800's. It' really a very nice station.
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM12Y8
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
The PRR Depot burned 20 or more years ago, but the NYC Depot is very much in use as a dance studio.
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =
The station master's office and ticket sales window is closed. replaced with a vending machine on the outside (which accepts coins and notes and gives change, or ATM cards). Conductor on the train also sells tickets, and accepts both cash and ATM cards. Or people order subscription season cards over the internet and gets them in the mail to their homes.
Local control panel (in the locked ticket sales office) is set in inactive mode, as all tracks in the region are being controlled from area central dispatch 20 miles away.
The old LCL freight room in the basement is just being used for odds and ends storage for the railroad, AFAIK. The station master's upstairs apartment is still an apartment, but now it is just rented out to someone.
Then again, our depot isn't all that old, really - the RR line through our town wasn't built until the early 1860s, and the station stop wasn't created until 1892. The present depot wasn't built around 1915 or so, and has been modified since. And it is a small town.
This is what it looked like in 1919:
This is what it looks like today:
Some more pictures (by me) from a regular day's commute to town through our smalltown station:
I still miss the days when I first moved to this area (around 1978 or so), where there still was a stationmaster/agent at the station, and one could drop by the stationmaster's office for a cup of coffee and a chat before the morning train, watching the trains come closer on the control board, until the buzzer was tripped on the incoming train signal, and it was time to announce on the loudspeaker that the inbound (or outbound) train would shortly arrive on track 1 (or track 2).
Oh well - it is more efficient the way we run things now, and we don't run trains for the fun of it - that is just an added benefit for those of us that are fond of the trains :-)
A guy named Roy Olsen has a few online photo safaris along various stretches of RR around her - here is a link to a photo safari along "our" line (pictures from april 2007), showing the mix of old stations and new(ish) trains of various kinds:
http://trips.rool.no/kongsvingerbanen_300407
Edit: I browsed a bit more around on Roy Olsen's web pages. What a nice combination of fairly current railfanning photos and a trip down nostalgia lane over here in Norway!
Main page: http://trips.rool.no/trains
I found some shots from the area where my dad grew up as well - even pictures of the RR station where he lived in the upstair's station master's office when his dad, my grandpa, worked as a station master - Valebø station down by Skien - third picture from the top on this page: http://trips.rool.no/bratsbergb_y1_tjerndalen. There is quite a bit of contrast between rather smallish and pedestrian Y1 rail motor cars that ply this branch line and the more modern class 73 tilting EMU.
Here are some shots from Oslo Central station on a bad snow storm that disrupted train traffic and caused quite a few cancellations: http://trips.rool.no/oslo_s_i_sno
Anyways - just wanted to share the main link to his railfanning page, in case anyone should be interested.
Enjoy, Stein
I don't get back there often, but I believe the station is Clarksburg, WV is still being used. West of town, the line becomes a rails-to-trails. I used to board there and ride over the mountains (or vice versa).
When I moved to Tennessee in the early '70s, there was a beautiful old station in Johnson City that was later demolished. There are still lots of tracks through there. The old Clinchfield yard was some 20 miles south in Erwin, now CSX.
In Butler PA: the PRR freight and passenger depots are long gone. The B&O depot is even longer gone. I have no hard evidence there even was one anyhow, except for a reference in a book about a different railroad. The Bessemer & Lake Erie passenger depot has been gone for at least 60 years, but the old freight depot is now a cold storage facility and the new freight depot (built in the 50s I think) is still there, empty. Curiously, the B&LE depots were closer to the B&O tracks. The new station actually sat between the B&O main and part of the PRR wye that doubled as the interchange with the B&LE and B&O yards. Rather complex little area. The PRR signal tower that controlled the diamonds where the PRR wye crossed the B&O main is still there too. The once massive Pullman Standard plant (which local legend holds was the largest structure ever built before the Pentagon) is now completely gone, after being whittled away over the years.
Out in my other home of State College PA, the original Bellefonte Central station vanished some 70 years ago at least. If theres anything left, its buried under the foundation of the Hammond building on the Penn State campus. The second station is still there, now functioning as the bus terminal. The PRR station in nearby Lemont is either a resturant or a hobby shop. I forget which. Could have been both.
Sawyer Berry
Clemson University c/o 2018
Building a protolanced industrial park layout
wm3798
Hey if your ever in Elkins again let me know. I'm in the process of putting my "creation" back together, I moved and five minutes away from the station. One of my best friends operates the tour train out of Belington, nice ride! jdbres@verizon.net. Jim
Hey thanks for posting the pics of Elkins. I got to learn to do that! Hope you enjoyed your visit and "Welcome Home" if and when you return again! Love it Here and can't wait till they start building the yard and roundhouse, I think I read that they very well may return some real passenger service!
The big Union Station (CPR) here in Regina, Saskatchewan was taken over by the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Bands and is now a large Casino.
There is a stationary exhibit of a steam loco outside and a passenger car that is up against the building and they use it (one side missing) for a stage area in the restaurant part of the facility.
Johnboy out...................
from Saskatchewan, in the Great White North..
We have met the enemy, and he is us............ (Pogo)
In my home town of Princeton , IN . it is tourism office and local museum .
In the town I live in now , Wilmington , Il the station is in limbo and will probably be torn down .
Lebanon, Ohio - The original depot was torn down in the 50's with passenger service having ended in the 30's. From the photos I've seen it was in pretty bad shape when finally torn down.
The station land was later purchased by the Lebanon Garden Club from Penn Central. A replica depot was built on the site but I don't think it looks much like the original. As far as I know they use it as a place to meet. We also have an excursion train in town that used the depot to sell tickets at one time, but they outgrew the space and now sell tickets in an old hardware store across the street.
Rangerover wrote:Here in Elkins West Virginia, the rail yard was removed including a quite large round house and turntable. They started dismantling it in 1982. The old train station became a museum and welcome station for Elkins. Now they replaced the railroad bridge over the Tygart River, laid new track and trans are running again, mostly tour trains because of the new Mountain Theater. Occasionally some freight come to the yard. The train station is a train station again and museum. They have plans to put some of the yard back including the roundhouse and turntable, really exciting stuff!
Let me help you out with some visuals...
Elkins Depot, built by the Western Maryland in 1908. I was there in 2007 before the tracks were re-laid. The bridge was almost completed.
Here on Delmarva, there's a good number of stations remaining, with all but a few "re-purposed". In Cambridge, the old PRR station is now a realtor's office, Hurlock has two stations, one relocated from a few miles up the line and fixed up for a community center. The other is the original "union station" if you will, where the BC&A crossed the Dorchester & Delaware, which has more or less been left to rot. It's still there, and there are rumblings of a tourist line restoring it, but we're not holding our breath.
In Federalsburg, the old PRR station now serves as the offices of the Maryland and Delaware, which now operates the line
And in Seaford DE, NS uses the former PRR station for it's MOW department.
There's a scad of others, including many that have been relocated and are now being used as residences.
The IC depot in Carbondale, Illinois is now a museum.
The BIG IC depot in my home town of Centralia, Illinois we town down!
majortom
The Post Office (former NKP depot) in Ingalls, Indiana.
Wow...old threads....
Like I said above, mine are underwater, but here's one that isn't in my town. It's now a bus company...
Owner and superintendant of the N scale Texas Colorado & Western Railway, a protolanced representaion of the BNSF from Fort Worth, TX through Wichita Falls TX and into Colorado.
Check out the TC&WRy on at https://www.facebook.com/TCWRy
Check out my MRR How-To YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/RonsTrainsNThings
I beleive both of my town's depots are underwater.........
(Really, I'm not lying! The river was blocked, flooding about half of the town so the people of Boston could drink.)
It's not MY old hometown station, but I recently traveled via Amtrak to Richmond VA. The Amtrak station was clean and comfortable but nothing special. As we toured the city, we found that the original Atlantic Coast Line's Broad Street Train Station is now the Science Museum of Virginia. It is a beautiful station, and largely unchanged. It even still has the tracks and loading platforms installed. They are used for static display of old trains. The right of way used by Amtrak is about 100 yards behind the museum. I cannot imagine why it is not still the train station. It is even in a better location than the current station.
http://www.smv.org/aboutus/history.asp
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow