Railroad stations were once as common as today's zip codes, at least one for every community. From roughly 1830 to 1930, train transportation was the catalyst of America's booming geographic and economic expansion. Railroads dominated the landscape and controlled a massive new cross-country flow of life and commodities. When people spoke of "the road," they usually meant the railroad; and by "car," they meant a rail car. Wagon roads—bumpy, rutted channels of mud or swirling dust in warm weather—were totally impassable in the blizzards of winter. Until well into the 20th century, only the streets of major cities bore the firmness of bricks, cobblestones, or asphalt. In myriad small towns, the main thoroughfare, whether paved or unpaved, carried the proud name "Railroad Avenue;" because at its helm lay the most crucial building in town-symbol of prosperity and faith in the future—the railroad station.

Because the United States today has only one intercity passenger carrier (Amtrak) plus a couple of dozen commuter lines and major freight haulers, relatively few people born in the last 50 years know more than a hobby's-worth of information about life in the railroad era. In the late 20th century, automobiles, trucks, airplanes, and electronic transmissions reign supreme. During the preceding era, railroading filled the combined transportation and communication shoes of all these specialized enterprises. Train tracks and rail yards—not highways and parking lots—webbed the nation. People frequented the railroad station as commonly as modern folks drive onto a freeway ramp, board a plane, accept delivery of a package, or push buttons on their telephones.

For decades, travelers passed through America's railroad stations for purposes as routine as going to work or shopping and as momentous as departing for college, a homestead out West, or the front lines of war. In dramatic fantasy, depots have served as emotion-charged settings for novels and motion pictures. In dramatic reality, they were battle targets, forums for political oratory, and haunts of escaping criminals. Railroad stations reflected the diverse and shifting society around them. They made a distinct comment about the prosperity, hard times, or values of a community. From whimsical to majestic, from rural to urban, their styles varied as much as the ever-changing tastes of traveling Americans.

Evolved during the last grand age of travel, the era of steamship and steam train, the railway station was an essential ingredient of every traveler's itinerary. Yet in the 1830s, when the first United States railroads chugged forth along the Eastern seaboard, there was no thought given to such a particular building type. Until then, people and freight had been transported exclusively by river current, animal, or wind power. Sailing ships, pack mules, stage coaches, freight wagons, or the latest innovation—canal barges—moved the nation. Even the primitive "railways," established by British miners in the 1600s for carting coal, depended on four-footed creatures and gravity for motive power. Not until 1804, when Englishman Richard Trevithick combined a steam engine with a tramway (boxlike wagons running on rails) did self-generated, mechanically-powered locomotion become a reality. In America, some of the early lines like the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Athens branch of the Georgia Railroad started out horse drawn. But soon fledgling steam locomotives amazed people by pulling open carriages, connected with chains, over iron-topped wooden rails. They traveled at terrifying speeds of 10 or 20 miles per hour.

Scrambling to raise capital for tracks and equipment, railroads had little interest in constructing passenger depots; they loaded and unloaded travelers at buildings that pre-dated the iron horse— stagecoach inns, general stores, or taverns. Furthermore, a "station" might have no station building or "depot" at all. In many rural places, just a gravel path and a signpost were a stopping place for the train (a practice that carried well beyond the incipient days of railroading). In some cities like Philadelphia, the timetable described the station as a street corner, similar to a bus stop today. Railroads often built the freight depot first, while the passengers waited on an open platform or in a crude shed. It was important to shield farm products and building materials; windblown and drenched people were a less urgent problem.

On the east coast, between the 1830s and 1870s, a number of the buildings constructed specifically as passenger train stops—were it not for their trackside location—would have been scarcely distinguishable from regular houses. Often, except for the ticket office, most of the space was living quarters for the agent's family. If travelers were fortunate, the ticket seller let them wait in the parlor, rather than restricting them to the cold front porch. Dating from the 1870s, two of these residential-style depots (built on a line that became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad) remain at Morstein (enlarged in 1889) and Kirkland, both near West Chester, Pa.

Another early solution to the mixed needs of railroading was the "train barn"—with shape similar to a livestock and grain shelter. Designed as much to protect the locomotive and short string of cars as the passengers, it encased the ticket office, waiting rooms, and as many as seven tracks. The one still standing in New Albany, Ind., is a rare example. Used as a warehouse today, it still has two tracks running into the building. In the mid-19th century, when trains traveled only in daylight, the doors at either end of the train barn were closed at night, with the shiny, fancy locomotive bedded securely inside. Commonly built of wood, train barns were often ignited by sparks from the engines they supposedly guarded-and were, in fact, anything but a safe resting place.

As locomotives became more powerful and could pull longer chains of cars, the trains outgrew their stables. Small homelike stations also became outmoded (although many continued in service) as they grew overcrowded with passengers and freight. Depot designs, especially for small towns, evolved with now familiar "railroad station" characteristics. The typical depot acquired a Janus-like quality, with one face turned inward toward the community it served, and another face turned outward toward the railroad tracks and world horizons—a building where the back door was just as important as the front. Indeed, which was which? There usually were multiple doors, to enable simultaneous ingress and egress of crowds at train time. In the freight section, large warehouse doors directly opposite each other permitted goods to be passed street to track side and vice versa. The building also had a clear outdoor component—a busy platform where people and goods waited to be loaded onto trains. At minimum, partial shelter was required. The porch roof of the early dwelling-type stations evolved into deep platform overhangs. They extended out from the building and were supported by brackets or free-standing posts. These platforms and canopies were the most defining feature of most railroad stations. The platform was a bridge between the humanly scaled building and the giant-sized, earth-shaking transport that skirted its boundaries. Growing ever longer as the railroad era progressed to accommodate increasingly longer trains, the platform accounted for the extremely horizontal character of many stations. Lastly, a nearly ubiquitous, polygonal bay window enabled the station agent to monitor activities on the platform and down the track.

Activity inside and around a station depended on how active that particular stop was along the line. At a lightly serviced, unheated flag stop—where the train did not halt unless it was signaled by a passenger holding out a flag or lantern—travelers might spend many cold, boring hours, or even overnight, waiting for the train, with no idea why it was late or when it would arrive. At a busy station, with a fully authorized railroad agent in charge, the depot surpassed the general store as the community's gathering spot. END OF EXCERPT