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Andover Depot
(Below is an excerpt from "The Railroad" by Bill Greene available in it's entirety on this website)
A news article in the August 6th 1915 Andover News had this.
“Andover Now Great Shipping Station.”
Andover, Allegany County, N.Y., On the Erie Railroad, has become probably
the largest shipping station for a town of its size in Western New York, in
potatoes, hay, cattle, etc.
Another news article in the January 21st 1954 Andover News:
With the closing of the Erie Station at Andover Tuesday January 19th
1954 another epoch of Andover history closed.
For years the Erie station was the center of Andover activities with
everything coming into Andover and a vast amount of farm produce, cattle and Ice
being shipped from here all handled by the railroad.
For a number of years the Andover station held the record for the
largest number of potatoes being shipped from here of any point between New York
and Chicago. In 1920 the Erie
handled 325 carloads of potatoes from this station and the carload shipments of
hay, straw, lumber and cattle shipped from Andover would run into an enormous
figure. In the boom days of the ice
business on the Andover ponds the Prangen Brothers of Hornell sipped about 1,000
cars of ice each winter which was all handled through the local depot.
In the days when the Erie was operating in full force here it took three
full time men to handle the depot business.
The first of these we can remember were “Gus” Richardson, station
agent: “Tim” Regan, freight agent: and “Tom” Regan, operator.
Besides the men in the station, the Erie also had a pusher stationed here
to help the heavy freights over Tip Top. Charles
Rogers was engineer on the pusher with Floyd Richardson, firemen and Patrick
Gallagher engine tender. A track
crew with Patrick Mulcahy as foreman and C. E. Baker, track walker also operated
from Andover.
I won’t go into the wrecks the trains had, we know they happened and
many people lost lives and many workers lost lives and body parts due to unsafe
work practices and crude devices on the trains.
On one occasion during the first world war a train derailed in Andover
causing all other trains to stop until they could clean up the mess.
A troop train was stranded in Andover loaded with Army men heading for
France to fight in the war. After a
few hours the men were getting restless, so it was decided to march them around
Andover to give them a little exercise. School
was closed along with all of the businesses.
Everyone lined the streets to see the men parade from the depot to Main
Street. Once there the men put on a
drill for the spectators. After the
drill the Army men were given coffee, cookies, bananas, cigarettes and
magazines.
When the tracks were cleared, the soldiers were marched back to the
train and left to go to war. They
weren’t allowed to tell their names or where they were from.
It was later learned that most of them were from Texas and many died of
the flu epidemic and many were killed in the war.
After the war one of the men wrote saying how much it meant to all of
the soldiers to be treated so kindly by someone they never knew.
During and after WWI, WWII, Korea, and the Viet Nam wars, the railroads
handled many of all organized military travel.
They carried millions of soldiers, sailors, marines, and coast guardsmen
and women to and from training centers and seaports.
They carried millions of members of the armed forces on trips to and from
their homes and recreational areas. They
also operated numerous hospital trains carrying wounded servicemen and many
other trains carrying prisoners or war.
Under the presidency (1901 - 27) of Frederick D. Underwood, the Erie
continued to suffer losses, and after a major reorganization (1941) it yielded
(1942) a dividend for the first time in 69 years.
In 1953 the Andover depot was shut down - never to open again. Passenger and mail service was discontinued in June of 1965. The building was sold to Baker Brothers contractors. It was torn down in the mid 1990’s.