I meant to post this Halloween(ish) writing on Halloween, but I did not have time. Below is a history of a fictitious railway terminal that is owned by the railroad I intend to modal someday:
Vine Street Terminal is the Harrisburg and Lancaster's main station in Philadelphia and its third station in that city. The terminal was designed by Willis G. Hale, who served as the railroad's Chief Architect from 1880-1895, and this is the last major commission the railroad gave to him. Vine Street Terminal, Constructed in 1894, was built after the terminal at Market Street was destroyed by a major fire in 1890, leaving the H&L without its own station in Philadelphia. The H&L decided to allow for better operations, and, at the City of Philadelphia's request, it would construct a new station outside the city center. The H&L selected the first Philadelphia and Columbia terminal located in the city, Vine Street, for its new terminal. The terminal itself is a unique design that has led this station to be rather disliked by the railroad's executives (and Philadelphia's population). The terminal is an Egyptian Revival style building, but how this design was chosen remains a matter of conjecture, as the documents relating to its selection were mysteriously lost (some say they were stolen). However, recently the station has gained grudging respect from Philadelphia as many people have begun to travel to see the station and its odd design. Most interestingly, many who come to visit the station come from Arkham, Massachusetts, and all are from the Church of Starry Wisdom or the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. Several visitors are archaeologists at Miskatonic University who have offered to give the railroad artifacts from a lost tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh, located in the Valley of Hadoth, if the railroad would fund an expiation.
Photograph 1: This photograph, taken in 1898, is of the H&L's vine Street Terminal and demonstrates its Egyptian Revival style. Of all the stations in Philadelphia, this is probably the most hated. Still, even Philadelphians admit the interior, with its Sistine Chapel-esque ceiling frescoes, sculptures, and other ordination often with Egyptian themes, strikingly grand if not beautiful. It can not be said the H&L skimped with it built this station, as it cost an astounding $50 million to build, the most expensive station, and arguably the grandest in the city. The station's soaring costs led to the end of the H&L's relationship with the noted architect Willis G. Hale, as the railroad's Board of Directors were annoyed with the station's high cost. Again, it is a mystery how the Board approved station was, as they would have reviewed Hale's designs, and those papers that did not disappear demonstrate the Board approved of the costs associated with the station. Even more strangely, none of the Board members could ever recall any details of any meeting they held relating to the station.
Photograph 2: This woodcutting of the station, showing it in 1897, is better able to illustrate the Egyptian themes on the station's facade. Oddly, this station has attracted many of the faculty, particularly the Egyptology and Archaeology Departments, at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. Several of these faculty members have offered to bestow artifacts from the lost tomb of the "Black" Pharaoh Nephren-Ka, including his mummy, for display in the station. Although intrigued by such an idea, the H&L has refused these requests, not because of any possible "mummy's curse," but because the H&L is a railroad and not a museum.
Photograph 3: This is another photograph taken in 1896 taken the day before the station's opening, demonstrating the Egyptian style of Vine Street Terminal. The station's style and the strange, heavily cloaked workers whose voices were not much more than croaks and whose faces were shielded by large hats, even during the summer, is what likely leads to the wild stories surrounding the station. Such as the ridiculous stores of Night-time travelers clamming to see strange apparitions, unearthly and eldritch shapes, dark, bat-winged, tentacled, and wholly monstrous in the windows of the upper story of the station when the moon is full.
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