Deposed depot

This is the Chicago and Northwestern Railway depot in Dekalb, Illinois. The photo was taken shortly after sunset as a freight train passed by. The long exposure rendered the passing rail cars as semi-transparent.

The railroad depot once served as the social and commercial hub of many small towns across the country. Goods, grain, mail and people arrived and departed by way of the steel rails that passed through town.

The increase in the number of automobiles and highways after World War II sparked a decline in rail travel, and tens of thousands of these buildings, many of them a showcase of architecture, fell to neglect, vandalism and the wrecking ball. Only about half of the estimated 40,000 depot buildings that once dotted the country remain, more casualties in the quest for progress.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.