[Book Review]
[Reviewed by Allen Brougham] . . .
- "Buffalo Central Terminal"
- By Ken Kraemer
- ISBN: 0-9743060-1-0
- 2004, RR Trax Studios
- Softbound, 72 pages
- $24.95
Now comes a book that railroad structure enthusiasts can truly drool over. I know that I have.
"Buffalo Central Terminal stands like a misplaced monument rising out of a mostly residential neighborhood," reads one of the passages in the book. Indeed, "it is an integral part of the local scene."
I got my first and so far only look at Buffalo Central Terminal in the mid-1960's. A friend and I had taken Pennsy's overnight Northern Express from Baltimore in order to return in daylight - while there was still time to do it - on the Baltimore Day Express. We were only in Buffalo for a very short while, but what a treat it was!
I was mesmerized by the imposing statue of a bison as we entered the station's interior. Still, the best was yet to come. There, beyond the statue, somehow cordoned off from the then-public area, was the immense grandeur of its Great Hall. What a magnificent place, I thought, yet I was saddened that the room looked so forlorn by its emptiness and lack of need. Its "day" had truly passed long before. If only I could have been here 15 years earlier!
Ken Kramer's book is replete with over 120 photographs - a few of them in color - to document the terminal over a period of 50 years. Shots are included from just about every angle of the station with its massive office tower, and the interior gets special treatment in a 14-page chapter devoted to scenes that I should describe as awe-inspiring. And yes, the statue of the bison is included too. There is even a chapter on Tower 49, one of two within the terminal complex, which had an interlocking machine that was so huge that the operators used an electrically-powered chair to whisk themselves from one end of the plant to the other. The towers (the other one was Tower 48) were designed to control switches and signals for as many as 1,400 train movements in a single day.
Buffalo Central Terminal was completed for the New York Central in 1929. Other railroads used it too; it was a busy place. Its end as a train station came in 1979 when Amtrak opted to vacate the place in favor of smaller facilities. Today Amtrak uses a couple of locations to serve its passengers in the Buffalo area downtown, and at Depew - but both could easily fit within Central Terminal's Great Hall with plenty of room to spare.
Buffalo Central Terminal may never again serve as a train station, but it is being restored, and visits are available at selected times or by appointment.
If you like train stations, this book is for you. It may be ordered from RR Trax Studios, P.O. Box 995, Cumberland, Maryland 21501. The cost is $24.95 plus $3.00 shipping to the U.S. New York State residents add $2.05 per book for sales tax.
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