Railroad depot

“ It is a great railroad centre, and it is very curious to visit the depot amid the rushing thousands who daily pass through this place on their way to Texas. It is a wildly romantic place, built upon a clearing of forty acres without any decided plan, streets running at random very much like the old cowpaths of Manhattan, and houses grouped in picturesque confusion. Finding the main hotel crowded, the proprietor manifested an unheard-of disinterestedness in a two hours search to find us suitable accommodations elsewhere, an act of magnanimity worthy of especial note and remembrance. ”

“ There was a squad of Rebel soldiers detailed at the depot for the protection of property and to guard the employés. The measly old shanty was more correctly termed a "depot" than are some of those elegant railroad structures which have recently been erected over the country, which, properly speaking, are "stations," even if located at a city terminus—a depot being correctly defined as a storehouse, or base of supplies for an army. ”

“ This is a place for workers, not loafers."
Mort Bemis gave Jack Knight a revengeful look. Then he moved towards the trap in the floor.
The scene was the depot switch tower at Stanley Junction, in sight of the local passenger depot. It loomed up thirty feet in the air, glass-windowed on every side. It was neat, light, and airy. In its center, running nearly its length, was the row of long heavy levers that controlled the depot and siding switches of the terminus of the Great Northern Railroad. ”

“ As the cushioned train flashes into the depot and stops, wedding bells peal, and the gong of many banquets sounds, and white arms are flung about necks, reckless of mistake, and innumerable percussions of affection echo through the depot, so crisp and loud that they wake the conductor, who thought that the boisterous smack was on his own cheek, but finds that he is nothing but a bachelor railroad man, with a lantern, at midnight getting out into a snow bank. ”

“ Quite, according to good modern usage, may qualify an adjective, but not a noun. "She is quite the lady," is a vile phrase, meaning, "She is very or quite ladylike."
Railroad Depot. Few things are more offensive to fastidious ears than to hear a railway station called a depot. [Pg 168] A depot is properly a place where goods or stores of any kind are kept; and the places at which the trains of a railroad—or, better, railway—stop for passengers, or the points from which they start and at which they arrive, are, properly, the stations. ”

“ At the outer depot of the Illinois Central railroad the national flag had been raised by the operatives, and a swivel belched forth its roaring notes of welcome. The hardy hands of the mechanics resounded with applause, and cheers and huzzas continued until the train had passed on to the city.
As the train passed along from Twelfth street to the depot, crowds of ladies were assembled on the doorsteps of the residences on Michigan avenue, waving banners and handkerchiefs; the lake part was crowded by persons hastily proceeding to the depot. ”

“ Site donated by William Redwood, owner of a mansion just north of the tracks. Depot built by Sylvester Roe in December, 1853, fronting on Main Street. In the rear were located a frame engine house with a turntable and a car shed. Station burned down 4 A.M. on Sunday morning, October 30, 1864, along with the car shed. Second depot: built January and February, 1865, on the same site. Nothing is known of the style or dimensions. Third depot: Built October-November 1870, south of the tracks. Brick, fronting 50 feet on Forty-first Avenue, and 801⁄2 feet in depth, extending back to the track. ”

“ Why the railroad company should have established a depot there he could not understand. Probably there must be some village not far away.
No other passenger had got out with Jasper. There was no other person in sight but the station-master, a tall, sallow-faced man, in a slouched hat, who eyed our hero curiously. ”

“ Messengers had also been stationed at the different depots, with orders for the companies, on their arrival, to proceed at once to Faneuil Hall, as a northeasterly [379] storm of sleet and rain had set in during the night, and had not abated in the morning. On my return from Cambridge, I stopped at the Eastern Railroad depot. A large crowd of men and women, notwithstanding the storm, had gathered there, expecting the arrival of troops. Shortly after eight o'clock, the train arrived with the Marblehead companies. ”

“ I'm an admirer of big cities, Jim, and I wouldn't have you take a foot off your [Pg 5] Woolworth building, or a single crashity!! bang!! out of your subways, but I wish there was a little more coziness in your depots. Why, at Homeburg I'm nearer the train at my house than I am in New York after I've got to the station. It's great to have a depot so big that it takes the place of mountain scenery, but it's hard on the poor traveler, even if it does have all the comforts of away-from-home in it. And then it swallows up things so. It takes away all the pleasure of having a railroad in the town. ”

“ And somehow we got here before they did. It was a close race though between us—them a-comin' down from the North and us a-comin' up from the other way. We met 'em down there by that little branch just below where your present railroad depot is. There wasn't no depot there then, but the branch looks just the same now as it did then—and the bridge too. I walked acros't it this momin' to see. Yes, suh, right there was where we met 'em. And there was a right smart fight. ”

“ Showing first growth parallel to river. The road over the hill is the National Pike.
Steam railroads affect city land in three ways: First, by their terminals; second, by their lines as barriers to growth or communication; and, third, by their lines as influencing land immediately adjacent. The central effect of a passenger depot in a small city is to attract cheap hotels and shops, such abnormal cases as the vacant lots opposite the Union depots in Toledo and New Haven being due to railroad ownership of the land. ”

“ When I go up to the depot he'll stand right in the middle of the railroad track and go to sleep. I have to whale the timbers out of him to get him awake enough to step ahead so's a train of cars won't stave in his broadside. But get him home here where he can see the barn, the place where he knows I stow the oats, and he wants to run right over top of a stone wall. Can't hardly hold him, I can't. Who-a-a!... Well, Cap'n Sears, here we be at the General Minot place. ”

“ This was spanned by a high railroad trestle, and when the train rumbled away across it and disappeared around the curve of a wooded slope, the boys watched the curls of smoke fade into thin air and felt a bit homesick. Beyond was a small freight-house, but no other buildings were in sight. It was a little clearing in the midst of the woods. The only path leading away was the road, which made a turn about the near sand bluff, 89 and then was lost to sight. At the rear of the depot was a smart stage-coach, into which a group of people were being helped by a slick footman. ”

“ Under Government control these staffs—except in very large cities—would be reduced to one, and all trains would run into one centrally located depot; freight and passengers be transferred without present cost, annoyance and friction, and public convenience and comfort subserved, and added to in manner and degree almost inconceivable. ”

“ The company then planned a large covered passenger depot, additional freighthouses and side tracks to permit horse cars to drive into the covered station area and unload passengers. In 1876 toward the end of South Side days, the Eagle remarked: "The depot, as at present it appears, is an unprepossessing object, and were it not for the tracks, trucks and railroad carriages in the vicinity, might be mistaken for a dog kennel, for a dog kennel would most unjustly suffer by the comparison. It is the meanest of many mean buildings in the neighborhood and its size dwarfed by an ordinary railroad car ”

“ Over five hundred "pieces of rolling stock"—as the railroad men speak of trains and engines—have to be sent in and out of the depot and yard in a day. These include nearly three hundred regular incoming and outgoing passenger trains, the "stock" and baggage trains which ply between there and Mott Haven, carrying empty cars and station freight, and the "made-up" and "unmade" trains passing to and fro. When a through Western or Boston express starts out of the station, the arrangement of one or two levers by no means insures it a straight track into the tunnel. ”

“ Because there's a horse railroad there that connects with a little town a few miles back in the country, and there are some people aboard who want to get off. The depot is always kept locked at night, and I am afraid you will have to bunk on the platform unless you will go on with me. ”

“ Well, it's just a question of depot. You see, there's coal right here enough to heat the whole world. That's what folks say. And when the railroad fixes things so transport's right, why, everybody 'll just jump around and build up big commercial corporations, and—there'll be dollars for everybody. ”

“ Yet the railroad candidate for Governor has deliberately tried to deceive the people of Georgia into believing that when the Railroad Commission ordered a new depot for Flovilla, the railroads promptly obeyed the order and built a new depot right away. ”

“ The question is not whether a railroad company can be compelled to build a depot and stop its trains at any place where are gathered two or three homes and families, nor whether courts can determine at what locality in a city or town the depot shall be placed, nor even whether, when there are two villages contiguous, the courts may determine at which of the two the company shall make its stopping-place, or compel depots at both. ”

“ The freight depot was shut down immediately, probably in May, and negotiations were begun with the Bushwick RR Co. and the Broadway RR Go. to run their horse cars directly into covered platforms at the Bushwick depot to enable South Side passengers to continue their journey conveniently as was done at Grand Central Depot in New York. The railroad contemplated the enlargement of the Bushwick terminal, never too well equipped, by building a large new covered passenger station, additional freight houses, and administrative offices. ”

“ The railroad company alleges that its increased traffic requires, in the city of Washington, additional accommodations for receiving, storing, and transferring freight, and that it has purchased the two squares mentioned for that reason, and that it intends to build a freight depot on square 233, as being at once convenient for the company and more out of the way of the travel, current business, and residences of the citizens than any point within reasonable distance of the line of the road. ”

“ In the open space known as Dewey Square, which is really nothing but the momentary widening of Atlantic Avenue at its intersection with Summer, the elevated railroad has its tracks. These, raised some twenty feet above the street, extend north and south along the western face of the South Station; there is a station at Essex Street, with stairways leading into the great depot itself. It was this elevated structure which now proved to be the compelling menace. ”

“ The trade of the road is such there that from the upper end, or what is known as the outer depot, cars and locomotives and everything—I suppose they run twenty miles up—laying on the tracks, and within a very brief space of time there was some fourteen or fifteen miles of locomotives taken entirely out. ”

“ Oakdale: First appears on the timetables of December 1, 1868. Nothing is known about a depot.
Sayville: First appears on the timetable of December 1, 1868. In December 1868 an engine house was completed at the station. In October 1869 a freight house and wooden station platform were erected at Sayville station.
Bayport: First appears on the timetable of December 1, 1868. In March 1869 the local residents built the depot building themselves with materials supplied by the railroad. ”

“ The station was located probably at Junction Avenue and Thirty-fifth Avenue. Named after D. C. Grinnell who owned the land in this area. In December, 1875, a depot was erected and opened. Service on the Woodside Branch abandoned October, 1877. Building mentioned once in July, 1882, as still existing.
GREAT NECK BRANCH
Broadway: One of the original stations which opened with the road on October 27, 1866. Located on the north side of tracks and south of Northern Boulevard. Nothing is known about the construction of a depot building. ”

“ Within the last year the largest railroad station in the world, in the yards of which there is an immense amount of traffic, and from whose signal towers are worked switches and signals innumerable, has been opened. This immense station is situated at St. Louis. It covers an area of about twelve acres, and is larger than the two magnificent depots of Philadelphia combined. The second largest railroad station in the world is at Frankfort, Germany. The third in order of size is the Reading Station at Philadelphia. The four next largest being the Pennsylvania Depot at Philadelphia, St. ”

“ Altogether there are ten railroad tracks between the front of said lots and high-water mark.
'3. By the building known as the Keokuk Northern Line Packet depot, . . . a permanent and substantial building, one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, formed of substantial timbers, and about fourteen or fifteen feet high. ”