BUILDINGS. Railway operations require the use of buildings in vast numbers. Of these pas senger stations and freight depots are among the most important because of their number and cost. Passenger stations vary in size and character from small combination depots used at local sta tions of minor importance to large terminal sta tions of masonry and steel, and often of almost monumental magnificence. A combination depot is one in which both the freight and the pas senger business is carried on under one roof. For the freight business a freight room is re quired, with platform space along a wagon road for transferring freight to and from wagons: and also the necessary facilities for handling freight to and from cars in freight trains or cars stand ing at the depot. The passenger business is served by the introduction of waiting rooms. Generally the structure is a one-story frame building sheathed with boards and roofed with shingles. Flag stations are stations of minor im portance at which only a limited number of trains stop• usually upon being signaled by flag. The buildings at such stations range in importance from a single roofed platform to a combination depot.
Where the volume of traffic is sufficient the freight and passenger buildings are separated. Passenger stations in these eases may be divided into local stations and terminal stations. The distinction between the two is that in terminal side stations the tracks, or a number of them at least, terminate at the station, while in large first-class local passenger stations the tracks pass by the buildings. Local stations greatly in size, character, and cost, many of them in large towns and cities being elaborate stone and steel structures. but the largest of them sel dom equal in size the largest terminal stations. Terminal passenger stations are those erected for the accommodation of the passenger service at large passenger terminals of railways. Fre quently several railways entering a town unite and use conjointly a so-called 'union depot.' It follows, therefore, that terminal passenger sta tions are located in large cities and towns, or at ferry terminals or at important junction points of several railways. These stations possess all the accommodations provided for large local sta tions, but in more capacious and luxurious forms and in addition many others, such as hotels. bars, cab, and carriage stands, parlors and reception rooms, rooms for gatemen, porters. police, watch men, doctor's office, etc. Terminal stations are denominated side stations when the building is situated at one side of the tracks and head sta tions when the building extends across the dead ends of the tracks. Usually the tracks enter the station in pairs with a platform between each pair of tracks. These tracks and platforms are commonly roofed over in terminal stations.
Train-shed roofs are sometimes made up of large steel arches spanning the tracks without inter mediate supports. and sometimes they consist of two or more spans of steel roof trusses carried by side walls and intermediate eolninns.
Except at combination depots and flag stations special buildings are provided for handling the freight traffic. Freight houses are of two kinds, commonly defined as terminal freight houses and local freight houses. The former are large sepa rate buildings at important terminals, and the latter are usually small structures at inter mediate stations along the line. Local freight houses are usually single-story frame structures having high platforms on one or all sides. If the tracks are only on one side of the building it is designated a side freight house, but if there are tracks on both sides it is designated as an island freight house. Ter minal freight houses differ from local freight houses in their greater size, in their more sub stantial construction of brick and steel, and in their arrangement for handling incoming freight, outgoing freight, different classes of freight, etc., in separate departments. and in having the stor age space separate from the spaces devoted to the handling of transient freight. Terminal sta tions located on the water front must also have provisions for transshipping freight to and from vessels. Railway, shops are located at one or more places on a railway at which locomotives and cars are repaired and built, and where all the manufacturing work of the railway is done. Such shops resemble large manufacturing estab lishments elsewhere in their construction, ar rangement, equipment with wood and metal work ing machines, etc., suitable for the work to be performed. Among the various other railway buildings are: Roundhouses for the shelter, clean ing, and minor repairing of locomotives between trips; car sheds and car-cleaning yards, for the shelter and cleaning of cars between trips: ice houses, for storing the ice used in passenger and dining cars and for refrigerator cars; sand houses, for drying, cleaning, and storing the sand sup plied to locomotives; oil-storage houses, for stor ing the lubricating and lamp oil; coaling stations, for storing and delivering coal to locomotives; watchmen's shanties; section-houses; snow sheds and protection sheds for landslides; dwelling houses for employees, and sleeping quarters, read ing rooms and club houses for employees. Some notion of the enormous expenditure in buildings required by railways is furnished by the state ment of the Interstate Commerce Commission that for the year ending June 30, 1900. the c.ost of repairs and renewals of buildings on the rail ways of the United States was $22,770,906, or about 21/2 per cent. of the total operating ex penses.