Train Depot Airbnb attracts train watchers and tourists

WASHINGTON — When Tom and Connie Wheelan bought an out-of-service train depot from a cousin, they planned to rent it out as commercial office space.

A few months later, with little interest expressed in the property, they had to change plans.

“We advertised business space and things like that, but nobody really bid on it,” Tom Wheelan said. “After about two months, Connie said, ‘Well, what about this Airbnb thing?’ I had rented them before, and I thought yeah, let’s give it a whirl. The worst thing that can happen is it fails, and we stop doing it.”

The studio room, dubbed “All Aboard” on Airbnb, was a bigger hit than the couple anticipated. Connie Wheelan said it was now around 85% booked for the next year. With users paying by the night instead of by the month, she said the lodging generated roughly twice the returns of renting it out for offices.

“The idea always was that if we could make the building pay for itself, then we’d pretty much get to live there for free the rest of our lives,” Tom Wheelan said. “That was always the goal … that’s the rationale behind this whole thing.”

It was so successful, in fact, that when one business renting the west side of the building backed out, the Wheelans converted it to another Airbnb listing, this one called the Hobo Hotel.

None of this is to say running the business is easy.

“We have to plan our lives, too,” Connie Wheelan said. “Like, when we’re going to go on vacation, we have to shut it down. We’ve tried hiring people, it just never seems to work out.”

With their own residence on the upper floor of the building, the Wheelans work to maintain a rapport with their clients. Connie said they kept a habit of checking on guests a few hours after their arrival.

The family also hosts additional companionship in the area: a cat named Ghost, that they adopted in 2018, can often be seen wandering the depot.

Connie Wheelan said the job took more paperwork than people expected. The business has to worry about everything from keeping track of bookings to filing hotel/motel taxes with the city.

While the property’s location right next to the train tracks would be a downside for many guests — the room comes with two sets of ear plugs for a reason — Connie said its proximity was an attraction for many of their guests.

“There’s a lot of people that are really interested in the train system,” she said. “So they come, and then it just works for families to come for weddings, and it works for us, too … most people will say that the first one wakes them up, and after that they don’t hear anymore … the other night would have been exciting, some old train came through.”

The suite commits to its train-centric heritage. The Wheelans commissioned wall paintings inside the building and went through a lot of trouble transporting a caboose car to sit outside the station, removed from the tracks.

“It was the year after we bought this depot, and there was a farmer down in Yarmouth … he had bought the caboose. It actually was a diner down by the Burlington Bees baseball stadium,” Tom Wheelan said. “We had heard about this caboose at a sale, we rode a motorcycle just to see, and when we pulled in and it said ‘Tommy’s’ on the side, we thought, ‘Well, jeez, we’ve at least got to try.”

While it remains in disrepair for now, Tom Wheelan said he hoped to eventually convert the structure into a supplemental space to go with the All Aboard suite.

The destination has retained history from after its decommissioning in the ‘80s. Several photography sets line the property, relics from the sites use by Connie Wheelan’s cousin, who sold the property to the couple. The Wheelans have taken some efforts to spruce up the backdrops.

“This was all here when we got the place, we love skeletons, so we put some up,” Connie said. “On Halloween a lot of people come and take pictures … we’re constantly working on it.”

The Wheelans early adopters of Airbnb in the area. Washington has only five locations, including the train depot, listed on the website.

“We knew it was a risk, but we decided to do it and have no regrets,” Connie Wheelan said. “We’re kind of crazy, too, to buy out a whole depot.”