Where were these depots & freight houses located? Cornerstone Series(R) Santa Fe-Style Brick Depot w/Freight House -- 11-3/8 x 3-7/8 x 2-1/4" (933-3805) -- Walthers Model Railroad Mall
Those were pretty typical here in Missouri and Kansas. Some of them are still standing in smaller Kansas towns.
Nick Here's a couple of links for you to check: http://atsf.railfan.net/depots/ http://www.atsfrr.com/resources/dkspencer/Depots/ATSF/Index.htm You'll probably have to do some "bashing" to make a specific depot. A guy in Las Cruces NM used two kits to make that station.
It looks very much like the station in Marion, Kansas. I have a picture I will upload to railimages to show you.
Here is that Marion depot. A SHORT HISTORY OF RAILROADS IN MARION by Kenneth L. Anthony The map of Kansas for the year 1878 did not show any railroads in Marion ( Historical Atlas of Kansas ). A few miles to the south, the Santa Fe line crossed the state making part of a system that reached clear to California. At Florence, Fred Harvey had just started running a dining and lodging house to serve railroad passengers, inaugurating a standard of luxury and service for the traveling public that was to become nationally famous. One of the largest settlements of Mennonite immigrants in Kansas had just taken place in the Marion area. Newly-opened farmlands were beginning to turn out a bounty which needed a way to get to market. The Santa Fe obliged with a branch line that cut off the main at Florence, ran northwest to Marion, then west to McPherson and Lyons, which was reached in 1880. (Bryant, History of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , p.55). For various financial and legal reasons, the branch was built and operated through its early years by a subsidiary controlled by the Santa Fe. Unlike many early little railroads that had pretensions of reaching across the nation, the Santa Fe branch through Marion was intended from the beginning as a branch, a feeder line to serve the local agricultural region. It was a function that the Santa Fe branch continued to serve for over a century. Meanwhile, Rock Island lines were building through the area in the middle of the 1880s. The Rock Island was one of the oldest of the western railroads. It was the first railroad to build a bridge over the Mississippi River. Riverboat operators mounted a legal attack claiming that movement up and down the river was the only "natural and appropriate" transportation route in the area. The railroad hired a lawyer named Abraham Lincoln who won the case for the bridge and won widespread recognition for his own career. ("The Rock in Retrospect", Trains magazine, June 1980 p.3) The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific was building west-southwest across the state, hoping for an eventual Pacific connection that would let it live up to its name. At Herington, the railroad broke off with a line south called the Chicago, Rock Island and GULF. They intended to run to the Gulf of Mexico. The line built through Marion, crossed the Santa Fe at Peabody and reached Wichita in 1887. Wichitans must have believed the line's aspirations. They held a big celebration for the coming of a main line railroad that would run from Chicago to the Gulf. ( Wichita Century; a pictorial history of Wichita, Kansas 1870-1970 p.58). It took a few years but the line through Marion finally reached the Gulf. The Rock Island was half-owner (with the Burlington) of the Trinity and Brazos Valley, completed from Fort Worth and Dallas to Houston in 1907, with trackage rights over the Santa Fe into Galveston. Through sleeping car service from Chicago to the Texas coast began that year, with the trains running through Marion. ( Burlington Bulletin #19: Teague, Texas and the Boll Weevil, Burlington Route Historical Society) A map of Kansas from the nineteen-teens shows two short spur tracks from Marion going to outlying quarries. One is about three or four miles northeast of Marion. Another is five or six miles northwest. ( Cram's Superior Reference Atlas; Texas and the Great Southwest 1911). Being on a trunk line railroad may have allowed locally quarried stone to be sold and shipped to a wider market. The Rock Island became an important big western trunk line railroad, and the line through Marion was, though not the most important, one of the five important long-distance routes. Besides the local and area farm products shipped from Marion, and the supplies and retail products shipped to Marion, the trunk line would have carried a heavy traffic of goods past Marion: Cattle from Wichita and south towards Kansas City and Chicago, Petroleum from the oilfields of Oklahoma and north Texas, Manufactured goods from the east and midwest down to the developing southwest. Traffic on the Rock Island line a few miles away going through McPherson and Hutchinson to connect with the Southern Pacific at Tucumcari, New Mexico was much heavier than the line through Marion; the Tucumcari line was the second most heavily used transcontinental freight route. And there would have been one major difference in the appearance of the trains. Solid trains of refrigerator cars with citrus and truck produce from southern California and Arizona ran on the Rock Island through Hutchinson and McPherson. But not through Marion. In the nineteen-aughts, teens, twenties and early thirties, the Rock Island passenger trains through Marion were heavyweight Pullman cars and coaches pulled by steam locomotives. Traditional "iron age" railroading. Then in the mid-1930s, the Rock Island embraced the modern streamlined diesel-powered passenger train. It's first "ROCKET" trains began service in 1937 on six different runs. The first "Rocket" service through Marion, Kansas began in February, 1938 with a Kansas City to Oklahoma City run. In November, 1938, another "Rocket" train through Marion was added, running between Kansas City and Dallas. (Wayner,ed., Car Names, Numbers & Consists ). The early "Rocket" trains were three- or four-car sets, more or less permanently coupled. In 1945, Rock Island introduced new passenger equipment with separate stainless-steel cars pulled by one or two diesel locomotives. The trains often had seven cars or more running through Marion. The "Texas Rocket" stopped in Marion twice a day, once at 12:17 PM going south and again at 4:13 PM going north. It's end-points were Minneapolis and Dallas. The "Twin Star Rocket" went all the way from Minneapolis to Houston, Texas but it went through Marion late at night without stopping for passengers: about 1 AM southbound and about 5 AM north. (Rock Island Time Tables, February 1956.) A MODEL RAILROAD OF MARION, KANSAS The town of Marion, Kansas has a number of features to recommend it as the subject of a model railroad: an extant rail line with a heavily traffic, a varied rail past, interesting architecture and scenery. Union Pacific freight trains, as many as twenty or thirty a day, roll at speed on the north-south line that crosses Marion's Main Street (1998). The line forms a connection between Kansas City, Chicago and Minneapolis to the north and Texas and Mexico to the south, a route of national and international economic importance. This appears to be primarily through long-distance business. Just north of Jefferson Street is a passing siding about a mile long where one through train can pull over and stop to meet a train coming the opposite direction. Some features are missing from the existing rail line. There is no Amtrak service to or through Marion. A sign on a post and the remains of a foundation mark the spot where a local station was torn down. No local railroad-served industries are apparent on the Union Pacific. There are the stubs of some tracks that were removed. (Is there a spur somewhere north of Muddy Creek to the quarry north of Highway 56?) Marion also has a "ghost railroad"-- the roadbed of a Santa Fe branch line that has been pulled up. The rails are gone, but there is still a handsome depot building less than a block from the courthouse. The nearby Marion grain elevator looks like it was situated to be served by the Santa Fe line when it was operating. The Santa Fe crossed Marion's square street grid, and the other rail line, at a 45 degree angle. The crossing of the two rail lines was just half a block off Main Street. Besides the railroads, present and past, Marion has some interesting physical features that would be attractive to model as the background to a model railroad. The Marion County courthouse would be a "must" to set the scene. Rock store buildings would be fun to model, as would be some Victorian and early-20th-century houses. The scenery includes a few ups and downs along the river and creek courses and a variety of trees in and around town, contrasting with open farmland beyond the town. An interesting scene. The one-lane concrete arch road bridge a mile north of Marion on the county-road that extends from Walnut Street is a gem. (Route 66 style) Marion has several features to make it modelgenic. But it might be worthwhile considering modeling one of the periods in the railroading past. BIBLIOGRAPHY Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe System Employee Timetables, November 29, 1942 , Vol.1 Eastern Lines, Reprinted by the Santa Fe Modelers Organization, Inc. Norman, Oklahoma, 1992. Bryant, Keith L., History of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway , MacMillan, New York, 1974. Burlington Bulletin #19: Teague, Texas and the Boll Weevil. Burlington Route Historical Society. Car Names, Numbers and Consists , Robert J. Wayner,ed., Wayner Publications, New York, 1972. Hofsommer, Don L., The Southern Pacific 1901-1985 Texas A&M University Press, College Station, Texas, 1986. Martin, Albro, Railroads Triumphant McCall, John B. Coach, Cabbage and Caboose...: Santa Fe Mixed Train Service , Kachina Press, Dallas, 1979. Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba , March 1958, National Railway Publication Co. New York. Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba , June 1963, National Railway Publication Co. New York. Rock Island Time Tables, May 1957, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co. Rock Island Time Tables, Spring - Summer - 1961, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co. Trains magazine June 80 Visitors Guide and Map, Marion, Kansas, Marion Chamber of Commerce. Wegner, John, "Twin Star Rocket", N Scale magazine, November/December 1997, p.40-42. "Will the Rock Survive?", Passenger Train Journal October 1979 p.9
