Re: What warrants a depot

Posted by Dave Eggleston on Mar 30, 2019; 12:57am
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/What-warrants-a-depot-tp13700p13721.html

I think a lot of it depends on the railroad's life and economics. Early times are flush with promise and sometimes the smallest promise got something built. As reality hit or times turned sour, this would cease to occur.

Digging into the Greeley, Salt Lake & Pacific one thing stands out: the lack of depots even in the busy spots. During construction, a real station was built in Boulder (in 1890 being downgraded to the freight depot) and a lovely one was built at the end of the line in Sunset (MP 13). The Boulder station made sense but I think Sunset was pretty extravagant given the location and business around it. It reflected hope more than reality.

In between these two locations up to five named locations were on timetables between 1883 and 1894 that all held a lot of promise and even generated income yet none got a station. At Orodell (MP 3) a sterile section house-like building sat next to the passing track; Crisman (MP 6) was served by using the grocery store adjacent to the tracks with a sign tacked on for good measure and a platform and water tank being installed from the start; Salina/Gold Hill (MP 8) got a CC boxcar set up next to the main as traffic increased and later a platform was built; Sugar Loaf/Wall Street (MP 10) may have had a platform once traffic built up around 1883-84 but I've not yet found a reference; Copper Rock (MP 12.5) begged for a station during the 1891/92 boom and got a platform after lots of noise. The line's infrastructure spending went to rebuilding bridges, digging out from slides and building a spur or two to promising mines--any income from boom traffic that occurred went into someone's pocket first.

Even when the Sunset station burned in 1893, it was replaced with boxcars. The line was too poor for anything beyond that.