Hamlet North Carolina

The Seaboard Air Line Railroad Station

It was raining the morning I pulled into Hamlet North Carolina on Amtrak’s Silver Star. We were running a “bit” late, as is common for Amtrak on the tracks of many freight lines, but not terribly late. As the train pulled up it stopped right by the depot to let a sleeping car passenger off. Therefore, I found myself in a fairly decent location to take this shot.

Hamlet North Carolina was a town of the post-Civil War south. It developed the obligatory cotton mills and a few lumber yards. More importantly, it became a “railroad town.” In this case, the railroad that brought life to the gathering of buildings that became Hamlet NC was the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. From an initial beginning of one crossing, the Seaboard soon expanded to the point where 5 different lines left Hamlet for Richmond VA, Wilmington NC, Atlanta GA/Birmingham AL, Charleston SC/Savannah GA, and Columbia SC. In its prime, Hamlet had 30 passenger trains a day leaving.

The town, itself, was incorporated in 1897. About the same time, this depot was constructed. It was designed in the “Queen Anne” version of Victorian Architecture, a popular choice for many railroad stations built during this period. It’s most prominent feature is a rounded corner tower, with a roof to match. The feature, often called a “Witch’s Hat,” was designed to give train employees and passengers better visibility of the various approaching tracks. This was an important feature in those pre-radio days, when often the only warning anyone had of an approaching train was the blowing of the whistle upon the train’s close approach.

Today, the station is served by 1 train a day each way, Amtrak’s Silver Star. Further, most days this train comes through during the darkness of the North Carolina night and thus the station is unseen by most of the passengers. The station also has a second use. It is the home for a railroad museum located in Hamlet.

Gordonsville Virginia

The Louisa Railroad (later the Virginia Central Railroad) Station

When a group of farmers and other interested business persons began building a railroad in Louisa County Virginia, they did so because they realized that it was impractical for them to depend on using the far-distant James River and Kanwha Canal system despite what the Virginia Legislature of that time was advocating. No, they knew that if they were going to have a way to ship goods to market, they would have to rely on that new-fangled technology called a “railroad.” And thus they started the Louisa Railroad, later re-named the Virginia Central. By 1841 they had built westward to the town of Gordonsville Virginia. There they constructed this building to serve as a passenger and a freight station (it is possible that the passenger portion of this station was torn down many years ago and only the freight portion of the structure survives). Over the next 15 years, and particularly during the Civil War, the structure was to see several important trains arrive and depart.

In the spring of 1862, the troops under the command of Robert E. Lee managed to force the Union troops under the command of George C. McClelland away from the gates of Richmond in a series of engagements now known as the Seven Days Campaign. In the subsequent re-alignment of troops, Lee sent his chief Lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson with a group of men and equipment, west on the Virginia Central railroad. Their destination, was this building, the Virginia Central station in Gordonsville.

Here they detrained and tarried a while until Jackson saw the Bluecoats gathering up north and went off to “whip ‘em” once more at the Second Battle of Manassas.

A year later and Stonewall was dead. Lee and his forces had moved north into Pennsylvania, and in a ferocious contest had been turned away at a place called Gettysburg. As a result of Lee’s tactics, another of his “Lieutenants,” James Longstreet, decided he had had enough of Bobby Lee, and implored the War Department, and President Davis, to send him and his troops anywhere but with the Army of Northern Virginia.

The Civilian Government gave in to his entreaties and ordered Longstreet and his Corps, to be transferred to the troops under Braxton Bragg which were gathering to counter the Union threat coming down upon Chattanooga TN. They were to make their transfer by “the cars.” The most direct route, via the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad through Bristol and Knoxville, was not a viable option due to the presence of Union troops, and Union sympathizers in East Tennessee. Accordingly, Longstreet and his Corps, troops and equipment, boarded the Virginia Central at the Gordonsville station and went east and then south over several roads, before finally turning west and again north at Atlanta. But they got to Bragg just in time for him to use them with devastating results at the Battle of Chickamauga.

Throughout the conflict, various Union Commanders recognized the importance of the Virginia Central to the Confederacy. Without the Virginia Central, foodstuffs from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia had only the vagaries of the James River and Kanawha Canal as a way of traveling to Richmond. Thus, much of the Virginia Central’s line, and many of the stations and other railroad-related structures, was destroyed, often more than once. Somehow, however, this building survived.

After the conclusion of the Civil War, the Virginia Central became the basis for Collis P. Huntington’s Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Eventually, this station was replaced with another one further on down the track built to serve both those trains heading to East-West to Richmond and Charlottesville, and North to Washington DC. And the 1841 station was demoted and used for strictly freight. Eventually, the “new” station was demolished, but the 1841 building soldiered on.

A few years ago, it was purchased by a local preservation group and at the time this picture was taken they appeared to be working on stabilizing the building. Initially they had to move the station back from the active tracks, there is also the possibility that it may be moved yet again.

Hoboken New Jersey

The Lackawanna Railroad Terminal

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, today I post, a Green Station. Now, before some of you start adjusting your color settings, or accuse me of digital chicanery, let me assure you, this is a fairly accurate representation of the actual color of the station. I admit, it is a bit unusual, but indeed, even in the broad daylight without the benefit of colored floods (a la’ the Empire State Building), it is green.

This coloration is a result of the design of the work of the architect Kenneth M. Murchison (his work has been featured on a previous posting). He designed this station for the Lackawanna Railroad (technically and legally the railroad in question was the Delaware Lackawanna and Western Railroad, but it was normally referred to by just the one name) in 1907. He collaborated with Lackawanna Chief Engineer Lincoln Bush, also noted as the creator of the “Bush Train Shed.” In it Murchison used the then predominate architectural style which has been classified as “Art Nouveau.”

Apparently one of the main stipulations in the contract that Murchison had with the Lackawanna was that any structure he built for them in Hoboken had to be “Fireproof” (perhaps because the previous Hoboken Lackawanna Terminal had burned to the ground?). Accordingly, Murchison clad most of the exterior of the building in copper, which by now has “rusted” into the green that is seen today.

The station is technically not actually a “Terminal” rather it has always been more of a transfer point, or what we would call today an “Intermodal Facility.” Passengers coming into the station by train would, and still, debark and board a waiting ferry to complete their trip into Manhattan. In like manner, passengers coming from New York City by boat would, and still, alight here and board an outbound train.

In its inception, the Hoboken Lackawanna Terminal was built to serve both those commuting into New York from the surrounding New Jersey/New York/ Pennsylvania countryside, and those coming from more distant points such as Chicago. In the late 1950’s the Erie Railroad, which at that point was in the process of merging with the Lackawanna, closed out its Jersey City operations and moved them into this terminal. But this was only a temporary measure. In 1970, all inter-city operations out of the Hoboken Terminal ceased leaving only the commuter runs. These commuter operations, and this terminal were later taken over by New Jersey Transit, which continues to use the station to this day (however, the Bush Train Shed is now gone).

There have been two other recent changes. While there is still some ferry service from the terminal, and indeed probably some of the ferries involved in the recent rescue of the passengers from the Delta Airliner that landed in the Hudson recently were from this terminal, for many people this option has been supplanted by the PATH “tubes” which run over to 33th street in Manhattan. Even more recently, a surface “light rail” operation running along the New Jersey shore of the Hudson, called the Hudson-Bergen line, has been added. Thus, while it no longer hosts long-distance travelers, the station remains a true “Inter-modal” operation in the most modern sense of the word for thousands of commuters each day.

There are two further interesting notes concerning this station. First, owing to its Riverside location, the terminal building (shown) and the ferry slips are built out over the water. Only the land-side train tracks and adjacent yard trackage are actually on land. Second, the famous Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas Alva Edison, brought an interesting closure to his career by piloting the first electrified equipment (which his company had built) that left the station in 1931 (Edison’s first job was selling papers and snacks on the trains of the Michigan Central). The equipment Edison introduced was finally retired in 1980, but it has been replaced by newer more modern equipment. Thus, the Hoboken Lackawanna Terminal has both diesel-electric and “pure” electric commuter trains operating out of its restored and refurbished surroundings.