(The following story by Agnes Jasinski appeared on the Business Gazette website on March 5.)
SILVER SPRING, Md. — After six years, Silver Spring resident Walter Gottlieb’s film about the golden age of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station in south Silver Spring and preservation efforts to save the historic structure from demolition 10 years ago has reached its final destination.
‘‘Next Stop: Silver Spring” will air 8 p.m. Sunday on public television station WETA channel 26 and tell the story of the little station that could through interviews with former employees of the B&O Railroad, residents and historians.
‘‘Silver Spring was such an important station to the B&O Railroad,” said Gottlieb, who said he was able to put the film together through a partnership with Montgomery Preservation Inc. and about $100,000 in grants from county agencies. ‘‘The film is about local history, but also about a time when life moved a little slower, and the pace of travel moved a little slower. … The film evokes nostalgia from that era.”
Gottlieb, who runs Silver Spring companies Final Cut Productions and nonprofit Silver Spring Media Arts, began work on the documentary while finishing another film, ‘‘Silver Spring: Story of an American Suburb,” which still airs periodically on the public television station. Gottlieb used a five-minute vignette on the station in the first film as his starting point on his latest venture, and access to the restoration efforts of MPI helped as well.
‘‘When you have a partner like MPI, it makes the research easier. … They had already compiled many of the old photos and the history of the station,” Gottlieb said.
The B&O Railroad was chartered in 1827 and operated out of a Victorian-style depot station in Silver Spring from 1878 through the 1940s. In 1945, a more modern-looking station opened in Silver Spring and served passengers that included former presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Baltimore Orioles baseball players and government officials.
‘‘That Silver Spring station was very good business for the railroad. People could park their cars, walk a few feet, and step on board,” said Silver Spring resident Robert Davis, who worked at the station for nearly 43 years. ‘‘You didn’t have to go to Union Station to ride the train. … It was very convenient.”
In 1997, CSX, which took over the title for the station when the B&O went out of business in the late 1980s, considered tearing down the station after a car ran into the building.
Following an outpouring of community support to restore the station, MPI, which is today headquartered at the station, took over the title from CSX in 1998 for $1. It eventually took the group $500,000 to complete renovations. Passenger trains ran from the station until 2003, and MARC trains today stop just south of the Silver Spring Metro station.
‘‘The film really captures what the building means to the community and beyond,” said Eileen McGuckian, a board member with MPI who coordinated the renovation effort with former Silver Spring resident Nancy Urban.
John Sery of the Potomac Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and a consultant on the documentary said the film showed not only the importance of the station but also the relevance of Silver Spring as a modern suburb.
‘‘It was a high-visibility locale,” said Sery, of Silver Spring. ‘‘That new station was something the railroad used as they looked toward modernizing … certainly, it was one of the few stations nationwide that they advertised.”
Silver Spring resident Ric Nelson said the film brought him back to the 1950s, when he spent four years loading mail and packages at the station.
‘‘I didn’t know it then, but it was really an important thing to be a part of,” Nelson said. ‘‘It was really nostalgic for me to watch that.”
Gottlieb said he hoped the film would become timeless and that his children would catch some of his ‘‘train fever.”
‘‘There’s all this new development around, and then there’s this little station still standing there to remind us of our history,” he said.
See it televised,see it live
‘‘Next Stop: Silver Spring,” will air on WETA-TV channel 26 from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday. To learn more about the film, visitwww.silverspringtrain.org.
The Silver Spring Historical Society will hold a free open house noon to 4 p.m. March 15 at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station, 8100 Georgia Ave. Call 301-537-1253.