Newton (NJ) Railroad Depot – 1906

Its time to create a backdrop that is the railroad station for the new junque locomotive that I built.

I’m using an old postcard for the station idea. It was in my hometown of Newton, NJ and was torn down when I was 5 or 6 years old.

I remember even as a young kid that I thought it’s history should be preserved. It was similar in size as the really nice little train museum in the old station depot house in Danville, CA. The postcard was from pre – 1906, which must have been an amazing simpler time before the World Wars and before an explosion of new technologies. The postcard shows its old simple glory. In 1965 or 6, the stations brick had been painted green and all windows were boarded up. The tracks were pulled up and the railroad bed was cinders.

The style is red brick and is very similar to the buildings in Lock Haven, PA and also NY State small town architecture. These bricks were usually made of red sand. They were different than the fired clay bricks used in New England building’s, which I think were higher quality, but I haven’t found an article confirming this. The towns that used these bricks used them for workers housing, and where I grew up it was a small mill and factory town. The richest family was the Merriam family – related to Merriam – Webster. There house was a wooden victorian mansion with gingerbread. There was no brick, but it did have nice big blocks. Merriam had a very big shoe factory made of red brick. Lock Haven PA had lots of red brick houses, which were outside of the downtown lumber baron mansions.

As with the radio transmitter backdrop, making one other item besides the main item really paints a better picture. The small console for the Broadcast Engineers really turned out to be the “Star of the Show”. I’m betting the lumber cart and especially the “Semaphore” pole really makes the train station.

Its funny how creating a scene with this miniature pieces have a parallel tie to writing a song. The creative process is pretty interesting. Its always been a good exercise of the creative side of the brain – I’ve been working on data for 40 years – so to just be able to let my mind run free, fast and lose is refreshing.