We’ve all noticed it. There’s something atmospheric about most railroad structures. There are so many examples. From major stations (and there would be much to say about the atmosphere of stations!) all the way through to the humble mile board’s increments of distance.
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Back in an earlier era of railroading, it was not uncommon to move station buildings from one location to another. It may have been a short procedure necessitated by work on a new track alignment. Or, if a new, larger station was being built in a town, the smaller existing structure might be loaded on a flat car and transported by rail to a new town. Temporary stations were sometimes built specifically to be moved from site to site as needed during construction. Even to this day, it is not uncommon to see depots vacated by the railroads moved from the right-of-way to new sites for historical preservation as museums, or for other commercial uses.
The small Victorian station originally located in Quincy, Pennsylvania may be a contender for the record number of moves, but this time all in the interest of historical rail preservation.
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Henry Theodore Wilhelm was born in 1905, in the middle of arguably the most exciting and constructive decade in American history. The Panama Canal, electrification of mainline railroads such as the New Haven, huge new steel bridges and other infrastructure improvements, all were part of investment in America and her future. The list of what was deemed possible, and then doable, goes on and on.
At age 14, Henry became fascinated with railroads, and especially with the thousands of manned interlocking stations and cabins. This led to his lifelong hobby of documenting these unusual places, which the railroads had built as a necessity for preventing collisions, given the high volume of trains transporting passengers, mail, and freight all across the country. Over time, he photographed more than 2,500 junctions and the towers that controlled them. His notes were precise and detailed, and his negatives individually numbered and described in his log books.
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I suppose you get used to it: the dishes rattling in the cupboard, the thundering locomotive, the diesel fumes invading the front porch, the clack of wheels on steel rail, the wait in the driveway for a train to pass.
Life along the tracks. It may be hard for railfans to appreciate that if you live this close to trains, the railroad becomes commonplace, or perhaps a nuisance. The early morning noise, your favorite TV show drowned out by a train—the railroad is an inescapable part of your day to day life.
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Built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1915, ALTO (JK) tower, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, remained in service for the next ninety-seven years, closing in 2012. Over that time it worked under the auspices of four different railroads, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), Penn Central, Conrail and Norfolk Southern and each railroad, in turn, brought something new to the table. It is easy to think of railroad history over the last century to be one of subtraction; infrastructure being removed as a transportation monopoly yielded to competition from air travel and highways. However, for at least its ninety-seven years in service, ALTO’s story was one of adaptation to the ever changing times.
By the mid 1960s, my father was still working a “relief” job. This meant OW on Mondays, JO on Tuesday and Wednesday, and NW on Thursday and Friday. For several years the railroad was short on towermen, and my dad worked his days off at NW. Saturday was my big day to go with him. My dad was always a good relief and came in early—most men were. Jim Donahue was the day man and was ready to leave after we showed up and he let my dad know if anything was not normal. That meant with the interlocking machine as well as trains not running in their normal order.