Interior of Historic Silver Spring, Maryland Station

Today's post is about the historic train station not too far from where I live and work. Part of the history of Silver Spring, Maryland is that the area wasn't originally known as Silver Spring. This was the name of the country estate/farm owned by my cousins (the Blair family... we're related via Eliza Violet Gist Blair) in the 1800's. The history of how they ended up in the area is a story for another post, though! As they were influential in the area, the station was placed near their property and named accordingly... and the name has stuck until this day.

Enjoy the tour!

As you can see, the platform (northbound) for the station was never dismantled, although it has fallen in to disrepair. I believe that when the metro got put in, the third rail was removed and two additional metro rails put in with a new second heavy rail track placed beyond the original southbound one... which is probably partly why the other part of the station is no longer on the southbound side.

Close up of the overhang from the station, next to the tracks.

Silver Spring Station as seen from Georgia Avenue

On the left side is the new station, including pedestrian overpass... and on the right we have the historic station.

Click on the box above to pan around an immersive panoramic image in almost all directions... the pictures below show individual elements, but the photosynth panorama above allows you to see how all the pieces fit together.

My understanding is that they restored the station after it falling into some amount of disuse and not being maintained. If I read correctly, the whole place was actually boarded up for a while before they fixed it up.

This door leads on to the rail platform and on the right you have lockers which date back to at least the 50's or 60's.

Nowadays you can reserve the room for meetings and private functions. In fact, I was actually there because of a local political club that I belong to. It's kind of an odd place to meet because of the arrangement of the waiting room furniture... however, I can't say that it was uncomfortable. :)

Ticket counter... I should have taken a picture of the typewriter they had... it was really classic with all the exposed machinery and the round keys!

That's not a joke... it's a telephone closet!

And it's  a rotary dial phone

There's even a light that turns on when you close the door...  the vent to cool the phone booth on the other hand, unfortunately no longer works.

They even had period announcements!