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Stations & Depots

Railroad Stations & Depots (USA): History, Architecture & Famous Terminals

Last revised: September 4, 2026

For a century the railroad station was how a town met the rest of the country. Mail, express, passengers, train orders, and gossip all passed the same bay window. Brian Solomon, in Railway Depots, Stations & Terminals, estimates about 80,000 depots and terminals in service during the industry’s peak through World War I. Most were small combination buildings with a waiting room, a freight room, and an operator. A few were civic monuments: Pennsylvania Station (opened 1910) and Grand Central Terminal (opened February 2, 1913) in New York, Chicago Union Station, Washington Union Station.

This page is the national story of those buildings—what a depot actually did, how railroads named them, the styles they wore, and why Penn Station’s demolition in 1963 changed preservation law. Famous individual terminals already have American-Rails articles; they are listed below. Engineering landmarks (Horseshoe Curve, tunnels, viaducts) live on the landmarks hub.

Union Pacific station Cheyenne Wyoming circa 1984 Richardsonian Romanesque sandstone from near Fort Collins Mike Bledsoe

Union Pacific’s station in Cheyenne, Wyoming, circa 1984. Richardsonian Romanesque, 1880s, sandstone quarried near Fort Collins, Colorado. Mike Bledsoe photo. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Depot, station, terminal · B&O’s first stations · What the building did · Architectural styles · Architects · Penn Station and what it saved · Station articles · Related reading

At a glance

Item	Detail
Oldest surviving U.S. passenger station	Ellicott City, Maryland (B&O, 1830–31). National Historic Landmark. Regular service from Mount Clare, Baltimore, began May 24, 1830 (horses first)
Peak building stock	On the order of 80,000 depots and terminals through World War I (Solomon). Not a census
Monument year	Penn Station, New York, 1910 (McKim, Mead & White). Grand Central Terminal, 1913 (Reed & Stem / Warren & Wetmore)
The demolition that changed the law	Penn Station’s head house started coming down October 28, 1963. New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, 1965. Grand Central designated a landmark; U.S. Supreme Court upheld that law in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 1978
Union station	A building used by two or more railroads. Size is not the test. Englewood in Chicago was a union station and not a palace

Depot, station, terminal, union station

Railroads were picky about the words. A station was a place in the timetable. It might be a building, a sign, a siding, a water tank, or a customer. A depot was the building, usually small: waiting room, office, freight room, maybe a second-story operator’s bay. A terminal was the large end-of-the-line (or big-city) plant—train shed, concourse, offices. A union station was shared by two or more companies, from a brick depot in a junction town to Chicago Union Station.

Passengers said “the station” for all of it. Historians still mix the terms. On this site a page titled terminal or union station is a major building with a story; a depot page is the small-town or early B&O type.

Former Lackawanna station Binghamton New York early Erie Lackawanna era circa 1960 Italian Renaissance campanile completed 1901

The former Lackawanna station in Binghamton, New York, early Erie Lackawanna era, circa 1960. Completed 1901 in an Italian Renaissance manner with a campanile. The building still stands, restored. American-Rails.com collection.

The B&O’s first stations

America’s first common carrier, the Baltimore & Ohio, also produced the country’s first working passenger stations. Regular service between Mount Clare in Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mills (now Ellicott City) opened May 24, 1830, horse-drawn at first. Peter Cooper’s Tom Thumb ran on that line later in 1830; steam took over the passenger trains in the early 1830s.

The stone station at Ellicott City, built 1830–31, is the oldest surviving passenger railroad station in the United States and a National Historic Landmark. Mount Clare was the Baltimore end and became the B&O shops. The passenger station that stands there with the B&O Railroad Museum is the 1851 brick building, not the 1830 original. Both places are the start of the American depot story. Baldwin later gave the Old Main Line its Victorian brick stations, including Point of Rocks.

Agent, telegraph, hoop, and the red diamond

The small-town depot was not only a waiting room. Hans and April Halberstadt, in The American Train Depot and Roundhouse, put the agent/operator at the center. Before telephones and CTC, much of the railroad ran on timetable-and-train-order. A dispatcher owned a stretch of railroad. The operator at each depot reported trains “OS” (on sheet) when they passed, first by telegraph, later by phone. Each office had a two-letter call.

If the dispatcher needed to change the plan, the operator copied a train order. A Form 19 could be hooped up on the fly. A Form 31 required the train to stop and the engineer to sign. The operator made at least three copies: office, head end, caboose. Orders went up on a bamboo hoop, later a Y-shaped bracket and a loop of string. Southern Pacific agent Dick Maurer, quoted by the Halberstadts, remembered the fireman snagging the loop; a miss meant stopping and walking back. A train-order semaphore or, later, colored lights told the crew whether they had paper waiting. Vertical usually meant proceed; horizontal meant pick up orders. The ritual lasted on some roads into the 1980s.

Most depots also housed the Railway Express Agency. Klink Garrett, who worked for REA from 1935 to 1972, described that world in Ten Turtles to Tucumcari: the red diamond on the building, the forest-green truck, door-to-door parcels in a country that did not yet have UPS as a household word. Even a Burlington depot at Hot Springs, South Dakota, had an agent. At Shoshoni, Wyoming, there was no depot at all—the REA man worked out of a section house with a truck and a garage. REA itself faded with the passenger train and was gone by the mid-1970s.

Sunbeams in Chicago Union Station waiting room January 1943 Jack Delano

Sunbeams in the waiting room at Chicago Union Station, January 1943. Jack Delano photo, Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information.

The former Pennsylvania Railroad depot in Mifflin, Pennsylvania, June 1996. American-Rails.com collection.

Small town depot in St Marys West Virginia early 1900s razed in the 1960s

The depot at St. Marys, West Virginia, early 1900s. Razed in the 1960s. Author’s collection.

Architectural styles (a field guide, not a catalog)

Style was advertising. A Class I spent money on a big-city terminal the way it spent money on a named train. Small depots used the same pattern books in cheaper materials. Revival, in this business, usually means a European or colonial form reused in the railroad age. The table is a reading list, not every variant.

Style	What you notice	Where it shows up
Beaux-Arts	Arches, colonnades, domes, civic scale. Popular after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago	Penn Station, Grand Central, Washington Union, Chicago Union Station, Kansas City Union Station
Richardsonian Romanesque	Heavy stone, round arches, a fortress look. Named for H. H. Richardson, who used it on Boston & Albany depots	Cheyenne; Pueblo Union Depot (photograph below); St. Louis Union Station is often grouped with French Romanesque / chateau
Chateau / French Romanesque	Steep roofs, stone, a Loire-ish skyline	St. Louis Union Station (Link & Cameron)
Gothic Revival	Steep roofs, towers, pointed work; wood on small depots, stone on large ones	Nineteenth-century depots; Baldwin’s Point of Rocks is the B&O set piece
Victorian / Queen Anne	Gingerbread, steep roofs, decorative wood or brick	New England and the Mid-Atlantic small-town stock
Italianate / Victorian Italianate	Bracketed eaves, arched windows, often a campanile	Binghamton Lackawanna (above); many 1870s–1900s combination depots
Mission / Mission Revival	Stucco or plaster, tile roofs, arches, sometimes a bell tower. California missions as the model	Santa Fe and Southern Pacific in the Southwest; San Diego’s 1915 Santa Fe station is the textbook example
Greek Revival / Colonial	Columns, symmetry, or (on small depots) wood trim that reads as colonial	Often an addition to a larger Beaux-Arts plant; small New England depots
Art Deco / modern	The last generation of big terminals, 1920s–30s	Cincinnati Union Terminal, Buffalo Central Terminal (Fellheimer & Wagner)

Rio Grande PA-1 6003 and F7A 5551 at Pueblo Colorado Union Depot with the Royal Gorge October 2 1965 Ed Fulcomer

Rio Grande PA-1 #6003 and F7A #5551 at Pueblo, Colorado, Union Depot with the Royal Gorge, October 2, 1965. Richardsonian Romanesque, 1889–90. The building still stands. Ed Fulcomer photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Who designed them

A few firms and railroad staff architects did a disproportionate share of the famous work. Baldwin did hundreds of B&O buildings. Furness did the Reading. McKim, Mead & White did the one New York still talks about because it is gone.

Architect / firm	Best-known railroad work on this site
Ephraim Francis Baldwin (1837–1916)	B&O staff architect from 1872. Point of Rocks and a string of Maryland, West Virginia, and southwestern Pennsylvania depots
Frank Furness (1839–1912)	Reading’s house architect (~130 buildings). B&O and PRR commissions; Philadelphia Broad Street work before 30th Street
H. H. Richardson (1838–1886)	Boston & Albany depots; the Romanesque variant that bears his name
Bradford Lee Gilbert (1853–1911)	Erie chief architect at 23. Grand Central Station rebuild (the pre-1913 NYC building); Illinois Central Central Station, Chicago
Daniel H. Burnham / D.H. Burnham & Co.	Washington Union Station (with William Pierce Anderson), opened 1908
Graham, Anderson, Probst & White	Burnham successor. Chicago Union Station; other Burlington and C&O work
McKim, Mead & White	Pennsylvania Station, New York (1910)
Reed & Stem	Grand Central Terminal (with Warren & Wetmore); King Street Station, Seattle; Michigan Central, Detroit; Tacoma Union Station
Fellheimer & Wagner	Cincinnati Union Terminal; Buffalo Central Terminal
Jarvis Hunt	Kansas City Union Station; Dallas Union Station; Joliet Union Station
Link & Cameron	St. Louis Union Station
Francis H. Kimball	Reading Terminal, Philadelphia

Baltimore and Ohio GP40-2 4152 at the Norfolk and Western ex Nickel Plate depot Coshocton Ohio June 1983

Baltimore & Ohio GP40-2 #4152 at the Norfolk & Western (ex–Nickel Plate) depot in Coshocton, Ohio, June 1983. The crew talks with the agent on a local. American-Rails.com collection.

Colorado Central depot Silver Plume Colorado built 1883-1884 later Colorado and Southern now Georgetown Loop

Colorado Central depot at Silver Plume, Colorado, built 1883–84, later Colorado & Southern, now on the Georgetown Loop. American-Rails.com collection.

What tearing down Penn Station changed

The LIRR began using Pennsylvania Station on September 8, 1910; the Pennsylvania Railroad opened it to all traffic on November 27. McKim, Mead & White’s head house lasted 53 years. The railroad sold the air rights; Madison Square Garden and an office slab were the replacement. Demolition of the above-ground station began the morning of October 28, 1963. Tracks below kept running. Vincent Scully’s line is the one that stuck: “One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.”

The political answer was the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (1965). Grand Central was designated a landmark. Penn Central, which wanted an office tower over the concourse, fought the designation to the Supreme Court and lost in 1978. That case is why Grand Central is still a working terminal and a tourist stop, and why later restorations—Washington Union Station, Denver Union Station, Kansas City, St. Paul, Cincinnati Union Terminal as a museum, even Detroit’s Michigan Central under Ford—had law and public opinion on their side. Moynihan Train Hall, in the Farley Post Office across Eighth Avenue, opened January 1, 2021, as a partial civic apology. The platforms under Madison Square Garden are still the 1910 railroad.

Small depots died more quietly. After World War II the agent’s window closed, then the building went, or became a museum, a restaurant, or a municipal office. By the 1970s many that still stood held only an operator. The photographs of Mifflin, St. Marys, and Coshocton on this page are that middle age: still railroad, no longer a town’s front door.

Englewood Union Station Chicago 1950s Rock Island main Pennsylvania crossing Nickel Plate New York Central AC Kalmbach

Englewood Union Station, Chicago, 1950s. Rock Island main ahead; Pennsylvania crossing left to right. Nickel Plate and New York Central used it too. A small union station with a big timetable. A.C. Kalmbach photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Station articles on American-Rails.com

These are the dedicated leaves already on the site. Fate notes are short; the article is the place for the full story. Ohio is the only statewide surviving-depot inventory so far. More state lists can be added without rewriting this hub except to drop in a row.

New York and the Hudson

Grand Central Terminal (New York Central)—opened 1913; working commuter terminal
Pennsylvania Station (PRR)—1910; head house demolished 1963
Hoboken Terminal (Lackawanna)
Jersey City Terminal (Central Railroad of New Jersey)
Weehawken Terminal (West Shore / NYC)
Buffalo Central Terminal (New York Central)
Lackawanna Terminal, Buffalo

Philadelphia, Washington, the South

30th Street Station (PRR)—Amtrak’s Philadelphia plant
Broad Street Station (PRR)—gone; replaced in the story by 30th Street
Reading Terminal—head house a market; trains long since elsewhere
Washington Union Station (Burnham)—Amtrak
Mount Royal Station (B&O), Baltimore
Main Street Station, Richmond
Cincinnati Union Terminal
Terminal Station / Chattanooga Choo Choo

Chicago and the Midwest

Chicago Union Station
Dearborn Station
LaSalle Street Station
Chicago & North Western Terminal / Ogilvie
Grand Central Station, Chicago
Central Station (Illinois Central), Chicago
Kansas City Union Station
St. Louis Union Station
St. Paul Union Depot
Everett Street Depot, Milwaukee
Lake Front Depot, Milwaukee

West

Early depots and a state inventory

Ellicott City (B&O, 1830–31)
Point of Rocks (B&O, Baldwin)
Ohio surviving stations—the one statewide extant-depot list on this site so far

For standing combination depots, roundhouses, and water tanks nationwide, start with the Railroad Station Historical Society rather than waiting for this hub to become a gazetteer.

Railroad landmarks (bridges, tunnels, grades—not stations)
U.S. railroad history · Passenger cars · Streamliners
Amtrak · Commuter rail
Museums (many occupy old stations) · State history
B&O Railroad Museum (Mount Clare)

Sources for this hub include Brian Solomon, Railway Depots, Stations & Terminals; Hans and April Halberstadt, The American Train Depot and Roundhouse; Klink Garrett, Ten Turtles to Tucumcari; the American-Rails Pennsylvania Station article for the 1910/1963 dates; and the NHL file on Ellicott City. Photographs are from the American-Rails.com collection except as credited (Delano; Kalmbach; Bledsoe; Fulcomer).

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