Dickey Station Interior Plan ~ Input Requested

[Mike Trent]

Greetings, As I have been inching along on various aspects of my compressed "Layout" of 1935 Dickey, I have reached a threshold long in coming with regard to at least dummy-ing up a partial interiorwhich would be illuminated by a dim light to simulate an oil lamp in the station agent's office.

Yes, I know the ticket office was closed in 1929 or so, but the depot could still have been functional in various ways.

One of the things I have never added to the very nice rendering of the Dickey Station Todd Hackett did for my layout back in the 80's in Boulder, was the register desk which was later added outside the South wall next to the door that would have been the entrance to the register room. There would have had to be two register books at Dickey, one for mainline operations, and the other for the Keystone Branch, which was operated with both mail/passenger service and freight switching. All operations would have required to be logged at Dickey as either Extras or, seperate train numbers for east and wesbound passenger service to Dillon, only a few miles up the line.

Looking back through the photos and discussion of the Como Station, there are some helpful and interesting details that can be added to Dickey. One of the similarities is that both the main body of the Como Station and the Dickey Station are close to 20' wide.  With respect to the South End of the Dickey Station, the agent's/ticket office and the Train Register room fall into place pretty easily.

The North End, partition walls which once contained sparse living quarters, may well have still existed into later years. Several years ago, both Daryl and Derrell indicated to me that in early years, the Dicky Station was hit by a string of derailed cars that got loose upgrade and destroyed part of the original depot. As there is no Baggage door in the subsequent version, I went by the lack of a window on the North End as the probable location of a modest Express/Baggage room which probably would have had a sliding door.

The Agent's office probably had a door that allowed passage into the waiting room, and probably also had a door that accessed the register room much like what still exists at Como. The wall separating the Agen't office from the register room was probably very much like the one at Como, constructed of 2X2 dimensional strips, which allowed both light and heat into the area. I have added a 12" counter top adjacent to the door into the office which extends to what will be a partitioned wall to the record/storage room. I have drawn a sliding door to that room, but it could have had a small 30' door.

You can see where I have located a 24" ticket window, and stoves at chimney locations.

The original plan at Dickey was that the mainline would pass North to Dillon and then curve West to Frisco. Apparently, before the DSP&P began construction from Dillon to Frisco, it was decided to run the mainline from the tail of the wye at Dickey instead. Hence, the North End of the Depot became servicable from two directions, Breckenridge to the South, Leadville to the West, and then from Dillon to the North. Certainly of the modifications to the Depot at that time would have been to designate the Register Room in the Southwest corner adjacent to the Ticket office.

Attached are three photos. The first, my sketch of the Dickey Station floorplan as it may have been from when it was rebuilt in the 1890's or so. The two pictures that follow show the "open" wall at Como which separates the Register Room from the Ticket Office, and another that shows the counter top which was used to hold the registers as each conductor and engineer logged their passage and time.  

I'm open to any suggestions. I think the open wall will be a nice detail, as it will be visible prominently through the SW window and door, and the Ticket Office, visible through the South window. I think the plan layout has all of the requisite elements of a C&S depot, and may represent them in a similar way to how they were.

Again, the information contained in this forum continues to richly support information useful for all sorts of projects.





 

             

[Jeff Young]

Hi Mike,

Most of the depot interiors I've seen have had very simple plans.  I'd straighten the wall between the freight/living area and the waiting room, and the wall between the freight room and living area, and delete the storage area (making the register room larger).

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Mike Trent]

Thanks, Jeff. I agree, simple is best. The register room at Como is larger, and there probably wasn't much volume of record storage at Dickey. Thanks, this is the sort of help I am looking for.

[South Park]

  To keep with current trends in political correctness, you may wish
to have a multi-cultural, gender-neutral, all-ethnicity inclusive welcome
center area there in the depot.  It's the "right thing to do".  

[Mike Trent]

Good advice, SP. In early times there were separate waiting rooms for both Men and Women in all stations wherever possible. Including Como for sure. And even Dickey, in all probability. I'm sure no one would have given any thought at all to accommodating all the various subsets of situations available these days.  

[Keith Hayes]

Mike, why was the Dickey depot sited to face the line to Dillion, rather than the line to Leadville?

Was the intent that this operator was literally the gatekeeper for the Keystone branch?

[Mike Trent]

When the DSP&P reached Dickey, the plan was for the mainline to continue to Dillon and then turn West toward Frisco and Leadville.  

Before construction began to Frisco, however, engineers decided it would be favorable to continue the mainline from the tail of the Dickey wye. Which sort of co-opted the SW corner of the depot by default, and spared a couple of miles of construction. Could be that the only real alteration of the structure was to pull off the station sign from the North end and tack it over the window on the SW corner where the register room was.

My source of information on this is "Frisco and the Ten Mile Canyon" by Sandra F Mather and the Frisco Historic Park and Museum. It is part of the "Images of America" series.