FOSTORIA | The B&O Station on South Main: Brick Platforms, Arched Lamps and a Century of Passenger Trains

Author: FFP Ai Bot

“Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Station, Fostoria, Ohio,” postcard, 1910s

FOSTORIA — A steam train rolls in from the east, trailing smoke. A few travelers wait beside a low brick depot with a tile roof, and a baggage cart sits ready on the far side of the tracks. On the right, a wide brick walkway runs along the line, lit by a row of tall lamps that curve over at the top like shepherd’s crooks.

The printed caption names the place: “Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Station, Fostoria, Ohio.” This installment of our local history series looks at that station, which still stands on South Main Street more than a century after it opened, and at what an early photograph tells us about how close the railroads ran to the heart of town.

Quick timeline

A station for the main line

Fostoria became a railroad town because several lines crossed here. The Baltimore & Ohio, the Chesapeake & Ohio and the New York, Chicago & St. Louis — the Nickel Plate — all ran through the city, and their double-track main lines still cross at three diamonds inside a half-mile area. Railfans call it the Iron Triangle. Our earlier story on the LE&W depot and the Iron Triangle covers how those crossings shaped the city.

The B&O built its passenger station on the south side of its tracks at 500 S. Main St. It opened in March 1907, according to published station histories. The postcard shows a long, single-story brick building with hipped tile roofs, tall chimneys and a two-story section toward the far end. Across the tracks from the depot is a paved brick platform, wide enough for crowds, with the arched lamp posts spaced along its edge.

The Seneca County Historical Society has shared a nearly identical view from a postcard mailed in 1911 and compared it with the scene today. The station building looks much the same, it noted, but the wide brick walkway and the arched lamps are gone, along with several storefronts that once stood along Main Street in the distance.

The B&O station postcard, looking west, 1910s

Waiting for the express

In the age before paved highways, a station like this was the front door of the town. Salesmen, students, soldiers and families came and went here, along with mail, express packages and newspapers. The postcard’s details hint at that traffic: a heavy iron-wheeled baggage cart and a tangle of telegraph wires on crossarm poles. We were not able to identify the train or the exact year of the photograph used for the card.

The station outlived the passenger trains that built it. B&O passenger service ended in 1971. Nearly twenty years later, Amtrak chose Fostoria as a stop when it rerouted the Broadway Limited, and the city pledged $65,000 to fix up the station, platform and parking lot. The Broadway Limited stopped here from 1990 to 1995, and the Three Rivers from 1997 until passenger service ended in 2005.

Tracks through the middle of town

Tracks, a railroad water tank and a twin-towered church, early 1900s

A second early photograph shows how tightly the railroads were woven into the town. In the foreground, rails cross a dirt street beside a wooden railroad water tank with its spout swung out for filling locomotive tenders. Behind a frame shed rise the twin towers of a large church, and on the right a row of brick and stone buildings wears striped awnings and climbing ivy.

The photo has no caption. The twin towers resemble those of St. Wendelin Church, which stands near the old Lake Erie & Western tracks on North Street, but we have not been able to confirm the location or the date. Based on the unpaved street, the lack of automobiles and the photographic print, we estimate it was made between the 1900s and the 1910s.

Still a railroad town

Today the B&O station is one of the survivors of Fostoria’s passenger era. The old LE&W depot on West North Street is owned by the Fostoria Rail Preservation Society, and the Iron Triangle Railpark, opened by the city in 2013, lets visitors watch the dozens of trains that still pass through each day. The B&O station itself is active CSX property, so it is best seen from public areas.

Researchers can find more early railroad postcards and photographs through Ohio Memory, the digital collection of the Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio. Fire insurance maps at the Library of Congress also show station buildings and tracks in detail; see the 1896 Sanborn map of Fostoria at the Library of Congress.

Do you have a ticket, timetable or photo from the B&O station? We would like to hear from you.

More from FFP: The LE&W Depot, the Iron Triangle and the Union Stock Yards and Main, Perry and Sandusky at the Turn of the Century.

Photo note: Photographs and images published before 1931 are in the public domain in the United States. Historical images in this article are shared for educational and historical purposes.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Fostoria station (B&O station history, opening, closing and Amtrak service dates): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fostoria_station
• Towns and Nature, Fostoria, OH: CSX/B&O MoW/Depot (quotes Seneca County Historical Society then-and-now posts): http://towns-and-nature.blogspot.com/2023/12/fostoria-oh-csxb-mowdepot.html
• Destination Seneca County, Fostoria Rail Preservation Society: https://www.destinationsenecacounty.org/place/fostoria-rail-preservation-society-frps/
• Train City USA, Fostoria Depots and Buildings: http://www.fostoriairontriangle.com/Back%20Up/buildings.htm
• TrainWeb, Fostoria, OH Amtrak Station: http://www.trainweb.org/amtrakpix/stationphotos/FOS/fos.html
• Library of Congress, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Fostoria, Ohio, 1896: https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn06698_003/
• Ohio Memory: https://ohiomemory.org/