Railway depot

“ It is not traversed that usually persons wishing to go from the depot platform to a train standing on the northern track crossed the open vestibules on trains standing on the track nearest the depot. It was disputed, however, whether, on coming from a train standing on the farthest track, it was usual to cross an open vestibule of an intervening train for the purpose of reaching the depot. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The double track commences at the north, and sweeps around the store till it comes to the south end of the box which serves as the dépôt. This railway, made of bright steel, is just high enough from the floor to let a tall man pass under without knocking his hat off. These little cages reminded me of the car of a balloon, they swung along so airily. ”

“ In America the word is used of a railway station, whether for passengers or goods; in Great Britain on railways the word, when in use, is applied to goods stations. A particular military application is to a depot, situated as a rule in the centre of the recruiting district of the regiment or other unit, where recruits are received and undergo the necessary preliminary training before joining the active troops. Such depots are maintained in peace time by all armies which have to supply distant or oversea garrisons ”

“ The railways bring their passenger trains into a handsome union depot, and the interurban lines have contracted to erect a large union terminal station to cost over $1,000,000. Freight passing Indianapolis is carried over a belt railway, 151⁄2 miles long. ”

“ On the other hand, a vast proportion of the consignments by rail are essentially of the "small" type. From the goods depôt at Curzon Street, Birmingham, a total of 1,615 tons dealt with, over a certain period, represented 6,110 consignments and 51,114 packages, the average weight per consignment being 5 cwts. 1 qr. 4 lbs., and the average weight per package, 2 qrs. 14 lbs. At the Liverpool goods depôts of the London and North-Western Railway, a total weight of 3,895 tons handled consisted of 5,049 consignments and 79,513 packages, the average weight per consignment being 15 cwts. ”

“ In the larger cities high class hotels gather near the principal depots, as in New York and Boston, and in England, where they are frequently built as a part of the railroad station itself. The axial effect of railroad depots is of great importance in the smaller towns, where the depot constitutes one of the strongest single forces attracting traffic within the city. The distribution of this axial effect depends upon whether the travel to and from the depot is concentrated on one principal street, or whether the streams of travel pass through a large number of streets. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The South Side Railroad depot is deserving of mention; it was originally a depot building two stories high, in which are sitting rooms, freight and ticket offices on the first floor for the accommodation of passengers, while on that above are the several offices of the corporation. Early in summer a covered depot to shelter the cars was erected and has just been completed. ”

“ Three hundred yards before the station is reached the flame-throated iron monster, uncoupled from its burden of cars, darts forward on a siding like a spirited horse unharnessed from its load, while the train glides forward with its own momentum, slowly and more slowly as the brakes are applied, until it comes to a stop under the depot shed. Hardly have the passengers poured forth when another train rolls in, and then another, the pathway in each instance cleared by those keen men at the levers in this tower-house of the yards of the Grand Central station in New York city. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Everything is underground until the train rises through its opening in the floor of the depot. When the guard ordered us into the car, and bolted the door, we had been pushed into the receiving section of the main tunnel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 entire wild procession moves to the depot, followed by the chagrined and more or less angry Exeter men. At the depot, after some friendly scuffling and snatching of canes and colors for souvenirs, and deafening cheering on the part of everybody, the special train moves away for Andover, long before stripped of its blue colors, to supply those who have failed to bring a ribbon for themselves.
On the train the expressions of joy do not cease. Every brakeman or conductor who ventures inside a car is immediately put up for a speech. ”

“ Oftentimes a combination of ten or fifteen [Pg 185] all over the switch-board is necessary to give a train a straightaway track, and you wonder, as you hear this, how the men ever learn the varying combinations of keys. The train-despatcher in the depot notifies the men in the tower-house on which road each arriving and departing train is—whether New York Central, Harlem River, or New Haven—and they instantly know the answer to the problem. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In a moment the huge train had been raised by the hydraulic lift, and was soon standing in the depot of the capital of the United States.
What a beautiful and fairy-like scene presented itself to Junius Cobb! A depot of magnificent proportions, exquisite workmanship and finish, and possessing a hundred conveniences never dreamed of in his time. The great vaulted roof was set with thousands of electric lights which appeared like brilliant stars in the firmament. Thousands more, in every direction and in every conceivable place, made the vast chamber as bright as the midday sun. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is where the ebb and flow of the human tide of life is.
But I think in this time of war, especially, there is no place which so well shows up the psychology of the people as the railroad depot. Often have I stood in those large Paris stations and watched the people come and watched them go. The Gare du Nord, the Gare du Lyons, and the Gare la Chapelle are full of sentiment and pathos.
Once at the last named station I was standing in the background in the shadow of a pillar, where I was unobtrusive and unnoticed, and watched the anxious people. ”

“ Crowds of them, old and young, are always assembled at the station on the arrival of every train—attracted thither by apparently the same reason that causes their brethren of the North in the cotton belt to flock to the depot when they hear the whistle of the locomotive—childlike curiosity and a desire to get the latest news at the earliest possible moment. ”

“ Frequently several railways entering a town unite and use conjointly a so-called ‘union depot.’ It follows, therefore, that terminal passenger stations are located in large cities and towns, or at ferry terminals or at important junction points of several railways. ”

“ There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union, and where buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce. ”

“ In these piping commercial days of acute competition he has no time to be gallivanting down to the depot every time a through train rolls in, especially as the depot is frequently eighty or ninety miles distant from his domicile. He is closely confined at home turning out souvenirs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”