‘Who wouldn’t want to travel on a train?’: Author presents history of Birmingham Terminal Station in Trussville

Half an hour before a presentation at the Trussville Public Library about the history of trains in Birmingham, a train passing north through Trussville, out of Birmingham, snarled traffic.

It would be more ironic if it weren’t so predictable. That predictability, however, can represent more than the caboose of jokes about train problems in Trussville. It proves they are still running, even if they no longer carry passengers.

Marvin Clemons, the author of “Great Temple of Travel: A Pictorial History of Birmingham Terminal Station,” delivered his presentation, “Journey to the Great Temple of Travel,” in front of dozens of train-interested locals on Nov. 13. The event was co-hosted by the Trussville Historical Society.

Clemons, before he was a Banks High School graduate, started hanging around Birmingham Terminal Station when he was 14. He rode the bus from Huffman to 26th Street and First Avenue North and took photos of the railroad tracks.

“I was like a kid in a candy store,” Clemons said.

By the time he was 17, he was hired as a weekend tower operator, controlling train movements through the station. He would have stayed in that control tower forever had he not been drafted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He left to serve his country, and when he returned to Birmingham, the Birmingham Terminal Station was gone.

In 1905, at the peak of railroad expansion into Birmingham, five railroads collaborated on the construction of a new passenger station for the fast-growing “Magic City.” Stretching three city blocks and encompassing 10 acres, the new Birmingham Terminal Station, with its 100-foot dome and twin towers, was hailed at its opening as “the great temple of travel” and the finest railway station in the New South. It opened officially April 6, 1909. At its peak during World War II, the station handled 52 scheduled passenger trains.

“Things began to get crowded,” Clemons said.

The trains included dining areas and buffets, lounge areas and sleeping cars. There were white tablecloths, heavy silver, fine china.

“Who wouldn’t want to travel on a train?” Clemons said.

The architecture of the station made it a destination not just to pass through, but to come to. The formal dining room was a spectacle.

“It was a destination,” Clemons said. “It’s kind of like Highlands Bar and Grill is today.”

But following the war, as travelers abandoned trains for planes and automobiles, the once-majestic station began to decline. The soda fountain closed. You could no longer purchase a newspaper there. The formerly popular restaurant became a four-seat diner spot for snacks. Plaster peeled from the walls. Broken windows weren’t repaired. The dome leaked.

“The station was just literally falling apart,” Clemons said, noting that in 1967 first-class mail was moved off trains and to trucks. “That was the beginning of the end.”

The final run of the Seminole, a passenger train operated by the Illinois Central Railroad, Central of Georgia Railway and Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, was in 1968. The Silver Comet, of the Seaboard Coast Line, made its final run through Birmingham Terminal Station in January 1969. The final train passed through the station in November 1969.

“And then the wrecking ball went to work,” Clemons said.

When the large dome came down, it was heavier than officials thought, and it smashed through the floor and into the Fifth Avenue North tunnel. No one was injured.

“But the old gal had the last word,” Clemons said. “I kind of like that. That’s poetic justice.”

Ironically, following the station’s removal, the proposed project of building a consolidated service center for the U.S. Social Security Administration fell through, leaving nothing but a vacant lot. More than a half century later, the station’s destruction is still lamented as the greatest single loss to Birmingham’s architectural heritage.

Clemons, as his life went on, continued to explore his interest in railroads as a writer, photographer and historian. In 2007 he co-authored and self-published “Birmingham Rails — The Last Golden Era” with Lyle Key, a fellow rail fan and railroad executive. The limited edition book was awarded the George Hilton Book Award by the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. As part of his research, Clemons collected hundreds of photographs and historical documents for the chapter on Birmingham Terminal Station, documenting the station’s 60-year history and its demolition in 1969.

Some artifacts, as well as the station’s history, were salvaged. A window and chandelier went to the Carraway-Davie House. Cast-iron lion heads attached to the station’s marquee first went to the demolition company’s yard entrance, then were auctioned to Barber Motorsports Park and Museum. When the futures of the Alabama and Lyric theaters in Birmingham were uncertain, even when the Vulcan statue was falling apart, three words became common, a rallying point to save them:

“Remember Terminal Station.”