Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio
    Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio
    Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio
    Ebook168 pages59 minutes

    Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio

    By Mark J . Camp

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Springfield was the original destination of the two oldest railroad companies to lay rails in Ohio, the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad and the Little Miami Railroad. This would form the first rail link between Lake Erie and the Ohio River. Other routes became more important as rails eventually spread like spokes of a wheel from Cincinnati, and connections were made to Akron, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, Lexington, Louisville, Marietta, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Toledo as well as many other cities by the late 1800s. Hundreds of depots were erected to serve train travelers, ranging from the smallest shelter to the standard combined passenger-freight building to the major city passenger terminal. Cincinnati, Dayton, and Springfield became railroad centers, and towns like Blanchester, Hamilton, Loveland, Middletown, Morrow, Wilmington, and Xenia, served by more than one line, became busy transfer points. With the decline of rail passenger service, depots became unnecessary many were demolished. Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio presents a pictorial look at a sampling of these grand structures when they were in their prime.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJul 19, 2010
    ISBN9781439641071
    Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio
    Author

    Mark J . Camp

    Mark J. Camp, a geology professor at the University of Toledo, serves as a national director of the Railroad Station Historical Society. His other Images of Rail titles include Railroad Depots of Northwest Ohio and Railroad Depots of West Central Ohio.

    Read more from Mark J . Camp

    Related to Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio

    Related ebooks

    United States History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Watery Waymaking

      Sep 24, 2019

      Watery Waymaking
      13 min read

    • Article

      Puckety Chute

      Mar 1, 2018

      Puckety Chute
      17 min read

    • Article

      Hank Adams, The 'Most Important Indian,' Dies At 77

      Dec 25, 2020

      Hank Adams, a lifelong Native American civil rights advocate, died Dec. 21 at the age of 77. Adams is most well-known for his work in getting the federal government to uphold tribal treaty rights.

      2 min read

    • Article

      7 Essential Historical Maps

      Aug 17, 2021

      7 Essential Historical Maps
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Mayflower story

      Sep 11, 2020

      The Mayflower story
      7 min read

    • Article

      Selling Yosemite

      Oct 19, 2021

      Selling Yosemite
      10 min read

    • Article

      West Virginia

      Apr 21, 2020

      West Virginia
      5 min read

    • Article

      Off the Rails

      Jul 23, 2019

      Off the Rails
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Golden Age Of Rail Travel

      May 1, 2024

      The Golden Age Of Rail Travel
      11 min read

    • Article

      Tracking Omaha’s Past

      Mar 24, 2020

      Tracking Omaha’s Past
      3 min read

    • Article

      Tracking Progress

      Mar 26, 2019

      Tracking Progress
      2 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Platform

      May 30, 2022

      Readers’ Platform
      4 min read

    • Article

      617 Publications So Far... And There’s A Lot More To Come!

      Jun 3, 2018

      VIC Mitchell is a remarkable figure in railway publishing. Who else can claim to have made his mark with 617 publications - and the number is still rising. After more than 35 years, there can’t be many enthusiasts who haven’t got at least one Middlet

      9 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      May 20, 2021

      Right Away: The Railways of East Anglia by Douglas Bourn, published by Bridge Publishing, Lowestoft, NR32 3BB. Available from www.poppyland.co.uk. Softback, 159 pages Illustrations and maps in text. £9.95. ISBN 978-1-869831--332 In this delightful ne

      8 min read

    • Article

      Hill’s country

      Feb 22, 2022

      Hill’s country
      5 min read

    • Article

      Britain’s Busiest Celebrates 175 Years

      Aug 1, 2023

      THE restoration of LSWR Adams 4-4-0 T3 No. 563 to working order at Bill Parker’s Flour Mill workshop, as reported in Headline News 8-9 in this issue, narrowly missed out on being completed in time for it to bring a special Victorian train into Waterl

      5 min read

    • Article

      Small Town Colorado Notes

      Oct 4, 2022

      Small Town Colorado Notes
      4 min read

    • Article

      Army Trucks & Steam Trains

      Jan 1, 2024

      Army Trucks & Steam Trains
      2 min read

    • Article

      Over Here, Over There!

      Jan 16, 2024

      Over Here, Over There!
      16 min read

    • Article

      Tickets, Please!

      Sep 1, 2024

      Tickets, Please!
      4 min read

    • Article

      Devon Transition from Steam

      Jul 4, 2023

      FOR those of us who were southernbased trainspotters as the postwar 1950s gave way to the Swinging Sixties and steam conceded the upper hand to diesels, BR’s six regions tended to have associations in our adolescent minds, writes Geoff Courtney. The

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Railroad Depots of Southwest Ohio - Mark J . Camp

      journals.

      INTRODUCTION

      Southwest Ohio’s early growth was tied to the Ohio River and its tributaries and, by the 1830s, to the Miami and Erie Canal. However, the laying of the first iron-sheathed wooden rails into riverfront Cincinnati in the late 1830s was a harbinger of the railroad boom to come—an event that would change the way goods were moved for the next century. The first rails in Southwest Ohio belonged to the Little Miami Railroad, incorporated in 1836. Building a railroad in this part of the state was not easy; bedrock was close to the surface, and the only level ground was either near the streams and rivers or on top of the hills. The Little Miami Railroad built up the Ohio Valley to Columbia and then north up the west side of the Little Miami River Valley. The initial plan was to meet the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, building southwest from Sandusky on Lake Erie, at Springfield. By the time the Mad River Line reached Springfield, the Little Miami Railroad found that a connection at Xenia with the associated Columbus and Xenia Railroad offered even more opportunity.

      Many early lines in Southwest Ohio opened as narrow-gauge railroads where the rails were 3 feet apart, instead of the 4 feet, 8 inches of standard gauge. Until the 1890s, there was a plan to link many of the narrow-gauge companies into a great narrow-gauge network extending throughout the Midwest. Adding interest to the railroads of southwest counties was the presence of wide-gauge lines, like the Atlantic and Great Western Railway and the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad (both 6 feet between the rails). The Cincinnati and Hamilton Railroad had still a different gauge—4 feet, 10 inches between the rails.

      From a city so fearful that the newfangled steam locomotives would scare the horses that the city fathers forbade the locomotives in the downtown—instead requiring them to stop around Pendleton and let horses and mules pull the stagecoach-like cars into the city center—Cincinnati soon became a rail center. Railroad lines fanning out from Cincinnati, Dayton, and Springfield, and those connecting the towns along the Miami River Valley, led to development of suburban communities. As workers moved from the city centers, commuter passenger service became important. The railroad depot became the focal point of many towns. In the big cities, the depot became symbolic of the railroad company, and considerable emphasis was placed on designing an attractive structure—one that would draw more patrons. As Cincinnati and Dayton grew, it became favorable to construct union depots where the populace could conveniently board whichever line best served their travel plans, rather than seeking out separate, sometimes widely separated, depots. Separate freight and baggage stations were also typical of the big city. Separate passenger and freight depots were also erected in smaller cities like Hamilton and Middletown and in other towns where business was heavy. Smaller communities were well served by the classic combination depot where passenger, freight, and baggage facilities were combined under one roof.

      By the 1890s, hundreds of southeast Ohio communities depended on their depot or depots for daily news delivered by telegraph and train travelers, shipments from catalog companies, domestic and commercial mail, commercial freight for local stores, vacation and business trips, daily commuting, and visits to friends and relatives. The Baltimore and Ohio, Chesapeake and Ohio, Erie, Louisville and Nashville, New York Central, Norfolk and Western, Pennsylvania, and Southern Railroads were the major players in Southwest Ohio by the 1920s. The Golden Age of rail travel lasted until the war years; then the increasing use of autos, buses, and trucks led to closing of depots and a reduction in passenger service. The last major depot construction in this part of Ohio was the erection of Cincinnati Union Terminal and a new Pennsylvania Railroad passenger depot at Norwood in the 1930s and the reconstruction of Dayton Union Station and erection of a new New York Central passenger depot at Middletown in the 1960s. Today only a few hundred depots remain in the entire state, and most of the survivors are serving some nonrailroad function.

      A number of shorter railroad lines once served southeast Ohio, including the Cincinnati and Westwood, College Hill, Felicity and Bethel, and Ohio River and Columbus. The Cincinnati and Westwood became a commuter line extending 8 miles from Glenmore into the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton (CH&D) depot in downtown Cincinnati. The College Hill Railroad, later the Cincinnati Northwestern Railway, served commuters along its 14-mile route to Mount Healthy. A photographic record of these short line depots appears to be mostly lacking.

      The vast majority of depots pictured in the coming chapters have long since disappeared from the Ohio wayside. Some burned or were damaged beyond repair in train derailments. Most were simply removed by the railroad companies after their usefulness ended, especially when abandonment led to neglect and vandalism. Some were sold or given away with the condition they be moved off railroad property. Brookville, Franklin, Germantown, Glendale, Lewisburg, Trotwood, and Winton Place have been restored and serve as historical museums and/or community centers. Cincinnati Union Terminal is now Cincinnati Museum Center and houses the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, the Cincinnati Historical Society museum and library, and the Cincinnati Railroad Club. Eaton, Elmwood Place, Loveland, Madeira, Miamisburg, Middletown, Milford, Morrow, Norwood, and West Middletown now house businesses. Camden, Farmersville, Lindenwald, West Alexandria, Whitfield, and Woods have been converted to residences. Depots at Hamilton, Oakley, and St. Bernard remain in railroad storage and maintenance use. Norwood’s Pennsylvania Railroad depot and the Cincinnati, Georgetown, and Portsmouth (CG&P) Railroad depot at Mount Washington now house fraternal organizations. For an updated list of remaining depots and

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1