“This well-researched volume examines the American railroad depot in social and architectural terms, aspects which usually go unremarked. After differentiating between depots, which were single buildings, and stations, which were a collection of structures, H. Roger Grant traces depots from their beginnings as a existing trackside hotels, stores, or residences to highly specialized buildings developed by individual railroads for their particular needs…The book is easy, delightful reading, suited both to the rail and the social historian. It reinforces Grant's credentials as one of the nation's two or three foremost contemporary scholarly rail historians.”—Indiana Magazine of History

“The University of Iowa Press is to be commended on a superb presentation. The author, an historian and the editor of Railroad History, deserves thanks for rescuing the menial railway depot from oblivion or unrecognizable gentrification. His efforts will reward more than just North American railway buffs and architectural historians. Part of the book's wider significance is that it is a reminder of the value of visual and oral material as part of transport's historical record.”—Journal of Transport History