A 1911 photo postcard from Union Station, Providence. Possibly a useful bit of visual information for those crafting graphic novels featuring scenes from Lovecraft’s life. I imagine the trains were much the same a decade or so later. Passenger steam trains only appear to have begun to fade away in the mid 1930s, when one can find mentions of new diesel engines running passenger services on the Providence and Boston line.

In the following May 1926 letter Lovecraft has almost returned home from New York City, and his train is slowing on its approach into Union Station…

… I fumble with bags and wraps in a desperate effort to appear calm -THEN- a delirious marble dome outside the window – a hissing of air brakes – a slackening of speed – surges of ecstasy and dropping of clouds from my eyes and mind – HOME – UNION STATION­ PROVIDENCE!!!! Something snapped – and everything unreal fell away. There was no more excitement; no sense of strangeness, and no perception of the lapse of time since last I stood on that holy ground. […] Simply, I was home­ and home was just as it had always been since I was born there thirty­ six years ago. There is no other place for me. My world is Providence.” — from Selected Letters II.