Train station

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/6/01 2:03:46 PM Eastern Standard Time,
markodegard at HOTMAIL.COM writes:

<< Something tells me 'depot' was a small town freight-and-passenger station,
 vs. a formal center-city passenger-only station. It was certainly a bus
 depot when I grew up, though 'bus station' also was also heard.

 The idea seems to be a pick up/drop off point along a route vs. the
 station/terminal at the end of the route, as with 'bus stop' vs 'bus
 station'. >>

"station/terminal" is incoorect.  To a railroader,  a "terminal" can exist
only at the end of a line, and if trains normally run past it, it is a
"station".  E.g. that landmark at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan,
although popularly known as "Grand Central Station", is to a railroader "GCT"
("Grand Central Terminal").

I think I agree with "Something tells me 'depot' was a small town
freight-and-passenger [something]".  To me "depot" suggests freight handling
or warehousing.  In a small town the number of passengers is relatively
small, so that the freight operations at the place where the train stops is
easily noticeable.  In a large city a relatively large building, or part of a
building, is devoted to passengers, making it less than obvious that freight
is also handled here.  In fact in a large city freight operations may be
segregated into separate buildings that the usual passenger won't even
notice.  Hence a railroad stop that appears, to the casual observer, to
handle passengers only is a "station".

Why then a "bus depot"?  I don't know, but here are two guesses:
1) since a bus line can choose to make ANYTHING an intermediate stop, there
can be technically no such thing as a "bus terminal" (unless you mean a
junkyard).  Hence a place where several bus lines began or terminated had to
be called something else.
2) I have a suspicion that bus lines inherited terminology from stagecoaches
(in fact there are probably bus lines still around named "XXX Coach
Company".) and what were stagecoach nexi called?  Unlike a bus, a stagecoach
needs places every so often where it can change horses, or at least pick up
quantities of fodder for its horses.  Hence a major stagecoach stopping place
was more than a place for passengers to get on or off, and constituted a
"depot" in that it warehoused fodder and/or supplied fresh horses.

<change subject>

The subway system in Washington DC (which goes by the European name of
"Metro" rather than "subway" or "transit" as in New York) has the attendant
on each train announce the next stop on the PA system (the attendant does not
have much else to do).  Invariably the attendant says "The next station stop
is Judishooary Square" or whatever the name of the stop is.  Note the
invariable use of the redundant "station stop".

    - Jim Landau