M.C. Depot Belfast, ME

M.C. Depot Belfast, ME

Pictured is the Maine Central Railroad Depot and freight yard in Belfast, Maine just after the turn of the century. The scene shows a locomotive engine which has just arrived at the terminus, having discharged its passengers who are heading up the wooden sidewalk toward Main Street. The view encompasses the hill above, showing some of the grand sea captains' houses on High Street, and the more modest homes and outbuildings on Bridge Street lower on the slope. The image shows how the tracks ended just beyond the station platform, in the street. The freight line, here with freight cars standing by, parallels the passenger line in close proximity. The long, single-story freight house is partially visible on the right. The passenger station and patform canopy are architecturally simple, but embellished sufficiently to distinguish them from the utilitarian structures nearby. The station has a Palladian window and a low gabled roof with characteristically deep eaves supported by curved wooden brackets. The platform's roof is fairly typical of later 19th-century vernacular platform architecture, featuring an arched opening and eave rake decorated with fancifully sawn detail. The image is probably from ca. 1910, the period indicated by the clothing and the paucity of automobiles. The narrow tracks of animal-drawn wagons and carriages are visible in the mud. Two men idly watch the scene from the right, one tipping his chair back against the building, the other leaning against a woodpile.