Central station

“ Take the half-past-seven Sunday morning train from the New York Grand Central station, and you will see at every way-station a swarm of dark, sturdy foreigners entering or quitting the train at the little towns along the way—for this is a local train and makes all the stops—and these people are thus enabled to visit their friends and acquaintances. ”

“ You have but to go into any of the modern central stations in midwinter, to see them turning out anywhere from 10,000 to 80,000 amperes with a minimum of labor, to appreciate the fact that central station business is of a permanent and lucrative character. ”

“ The central station would become a social gathering place in the evenings for all the people of the district, and it is not too visionary to see in it a lecture hall, a moving-picture machine, and a music room. ”

“ The ramps are made about 16 feet wide, and the grade approximately 15 per cent.
Terminal Stations. —For the purpose of accommodating patrons bus and express terminal stations are being installed. So far these have been established and financed by private companies. Where several bus lines or express lines radiate from a city a union depot may be expected not only to pay, but greatly to convenience the public. Small hotels and out-of-the-way places are ordinarily used when there is no central station. ”

“ Not only will those subscribers who are connected by wire with central stations have the advantage of being called at any hour in the morning according to their intimated wishes, but such services as lighting the fires in winter mornings, so that rooms may be fairly warmed before they are entered, will be performed by electric messages sent from a central station. ”

“ The accredited ones are indeed those that have achieved, in the eyes of underwriters, superiorities that other central stations do not have. The accredited central station is located in a building of approved design, provided with an emergency lighting system and two alternate main power sources, manned constantly by at least a required minimum of operators, provided with a direct line to fire headquarters and, where possible, a direct line to a police station ”

“ The new Grand Central, with its marvelous blue ceiling capping a waiting-room so large that the New York City Hall, cupola, wings and all could be set within it, can hardly escape the attention of any traveler who passes within its portals.
"It is the greatest railroad station in the world," she continues, "and yet I have read in the newspapers that Commodore Vanderbilt built on that very plat of ground in 1871 the largest station in the world for the accommodation of his railroads. He thought that it would last for all time. In forty years the wreckers were pulling it down. ”

“ It is rarely possible in the field to work rapidly with less than five men at a trans- mitting and three at a terminal station. " Central " stations are manned according to the number of stations with which they communicate. ”

“ THE Central Railway Station, a really fine building in which the Manueline architecture veers strongly to Mauresque forms, lies back from the Rocio on a small square called the Praça de Camões, not to be confounded with the Largo of that name on the hill above. ”

“ In the central stations, the arrangements are those generally adopted nowadays to secure the quickest possible service,—even to the harness suspended from hooks in the ceilings to be dropped on the horses' backs, and the metal pole down which the men slide from their sleeping-rooms above. ”

“ Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. ”

“ At dawn I was obliged to leave the express and wait at a junction for the local train which should bring me to my journey's end. Against a misty sky, filled with clouds, in the uncertain glimmering light, the silhouettes of the mountains softly massed themselves, surrounding with a vast amphitheatre the hideous buildings of the station, the long lines of empty cars, the idle locomotives. Near by some factory chimneys, tall and unsymmetrical, sent their smoke into the morning twilight. ”

“ There is no great blame to them. Who, indeed, could see in the rude tram-line of Benjamin Outram the germ which was to grow into the maze of lines, and points, and signals which we now pass through without surprise at Clapham Junction or at London Bridge? That most complex organization, a great railway station, is entirely a product of frequent experiment. ”

“ The railway station is placed out of sight from the town, and, whilst it is excellently adapted to its proper purpose, it is made to harmonise and almost to sympathise in its careful architecture with the city to which it conducts. ”

“ Thus have perished multiform openings for public expressions of interest, scenical yet natural, in great national tidings,—for revelations of faces and groups that could not offer themselves amongst the fluctuating mobs of a railway station. The gatherings of gazers about a laurelled mail had one centre, and acknowledged one sole interest. But the crowds attending at a railway station have as little unity as running water, and own as many centres as there are separate carriages in the train. ”

“ Stretching away on either side of us, as far as the eye can reach, we see the passengers’ arrival and departure sheds, booking offices, refreshment rooms, goods and carriage depots, waterworks, gasworks, and all the other facilities and conveniences which are the usual characteristics of the railway system; while beyond the limits of the Station, and indeed of the city itself, which here intrenches upon the township of Hoole, the busy hum of life is ceaselessly heard spreading itself in every direction, and rapidly transforming the region of the plough into the turmoil of the town. ”

“ As he walked along, considering, his attention was caught by some red and green lights a little way off, to one side of the town, and the sound of the puffing and snorting of engines and the banging of shunted trucks fell on his ear. ‘Aha!’ he thought, ‘this is a piece of luck! A railway station is the thing I want most in the whole world at this moment ”

“ As we approached the station the guide said in his whining German:
"Pay attention to me now. I shall leave you here. Go to the suburban booking-office—the entrance is in the street to the left of the station hall. Go into the first-class waiting-room and look out of the window that gives on to the station hall. There you will see some of the forces mobilized against you. There is a regular cordon of guides—like me—drawn across the entrances to the main-line platforms—unostentatiously, of course. If you look you will see plenty of plain-clothes Huns, too. ”

“ As a rule, however, nobody looks as if he liked being in a railway station or would stop there if he could go anywhere else. I trust the Ministry of Reconstruction will see to it that the railway stations of the country are rebuilt and vivified. One does not really wish to stop at any station at all except one's own station. ”

“ Notice how little townships have grown up round the railway stations, especially on the main lines in districts near a big town. Houses spring up for the hosts of people who, like streams of human ants, hurry to the station to catch the early morning trains, and, as the afternoon wears into evening, come again from the station to snatch a few hours' rest at home. ”

“ That charming writer Gustave Droz has said that railways are at once the symbol and the outcome of the vulgarity of the age; and that whoever lets himself be shot through space like a parcel through a tube, and condescends to eat in a crowd at a station buffet, cannot by any possibility retain dignity of appearance or elegance of manners. The inelegant scrambling and pushing, and elbowing and vociferating of a modern railway station form an exact and painful image of this restless, rude and gregarious century. ”

“ Not wholly levelled are the old yellow walls; the railway-station with its one eye, and clock that never sleeps, opens its jaws with a cheerful bright light, like an inn fire; dark figures in cowls, soldiers, sailors, flit about; curiously-shaped tumbrils for the baggage lie up in ordinary. Here is the old arched gate, ditch, and drawbridge ”

“ The railroad stations in Germany are very much finer than our own. The interiors of the buildings are neat, with comfortable furnishings, fine restaurants, and dress-coated waiters quick and ready to serve. The station-houses are surrounded with well-cared-for grounds, containing flowers, fountains often, gravelled walks, and comfortable seats, so that waiting for trains never becomes tedious. ”

“ Sixty freight cars can be loaded there at one time. One thinks what emotions that glass-roofed shed must have seen in Civil War times. I suppose many a train of men in blue said good-by to mothers and sweethearts along those platforms. That thought was with me as I stood inside the old station, which in spite of its bustle of freight is filled with the haunting sadness of all places that are old and decayed and echoing with the whispers of long ago. Does it seem absurd to sentimentalize over a railway station less than seventy years old? ”

“ A BUSY railroad station is a grand child's picture-book, for him who observes it. All the child has to do is to look; the leaves are turned before him. There, in all the colors of the rainbow, are countless pictures to cram himself with. And what is a rather curious fact is, that a railroad station may freely be classed among humorous picture-books. ”

“ GEORGE STEPHENSON. If a town, or even a village, is of any importance nowadays it is sure to have within it or alongside it a railway station, a place that brings it into touch with the great outside world. Some seventy-five years ago there were no railways or railway-stations in Great Britain, or anywhere else, and people were content to post or coach along roads behind horses. ”

“ Look, we are going to have a little illumination to-night on the terrace. I think it will look rather pretty. Or will it be too like a railway station with green lights and red lights, and a large crowd having dinner in the refreshment-room, which is the loggia, and then rushing away in different directions? Basle railway station, you know, where everybody eats in a great hurry and then disperses to Germany and Switzerland and France. I rather adore railway stations; there is a sense of movement. ”

“ The layout embraces every feature and facility involved in the construction of a first-class terminal, including a depot building planned and constructed after the most modern lines, and containing every feature for the convenience, comfort, and pleasure of the traveling public; the most complete and up-to-date facilities for conducting the business of a large railroad station; a main power plant for furnishing power of every kind required for the successful operation of the station and yards ”

“ To the traveller, the ivory-white waiting-room, where Philadelphians delight to congregate, is an unending source of admiration; engineers find interest in the intricate system of tunnels and bridges by which a number of trunk-line divisions are brought into the station without crossing at level. Broad Street Station shows a yearly increase in its passenger traffic of about five per cent. ”

“ The American railway stations have special waiting rooms for ladies—not, as in England, places furnished with looking-glasses, where they can go and arrange their bonnets, etc. No, no. Places where they can wait for the trains, protected against the contamination of man, and where they are spared the sight of that eternal little round piece of furniture with 79 which the floors of the whole of the United States are dotted.
At Cleveland Station, this morning, I met Jonathan, such as he is represented in the comic papers of the world. ”

“ It pleases me to fancy that a railway strike might go on so long that people forgot the very purpose of a railway station. Railway porters would not even know that they were railway porters; and even the stationmaster would be ignorant of the mysterious secret of his mastery. Most of us have had a fancy that all society is like that strange railway station ”

“ A new railroad station has been built on the heights above the city and the old ramshackle wooden structure which is an eyesore to the city will be torn down to make way for the opening of a new street. ”

“ What a scene of bustle and confusion a metropolitan railway station presents a few minutes before the starting of a train, and more especially in holiday time. Men, women, and children, in every direction, hurriedly traversing the crowded platform ”

“ For the last twenty years the station of the Orleans railway has stood beside the old faubourg and distracted it, as it does to-day. Wherever it is placed on the borders of a capital, a railway station is the death of a suburb and the birth of a city. ”

“ Let the city government, through some film bureau, show us our own citizens at work and play and so quicken our curiosity and civic pride or shame, as the case may be.
Another public clubhouse which the marooned business man finds delightful and always full of good company is the railroad terminal. A big railroad station is an unfailing source of amusement and interest. ”

“ Everything else in the station was in a muddle—heads, things, buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass–wire set into the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory.
“I had to wait in the station for ten days—an eternity. I lived in a hut in the yard, but to be out of the chaos I would sometimes get into the accountant’s office. ”