Beginning today, Dan’s Depot will have to get by without its namesake. That’s because the only station manager the Amtrak depot has had since 1973 retired Monday.

Stephens said he is looking forward to spending time with his wife, who recently retired from the Belton Independent School District, and two grandchildren, ages 8 months and 4 years. And there’s two family farms that need attention.

“I’m just going to enjoy the free time. It’s been a long haul,” Stephens said.

Stephens is a third-generation railroad worker. His grandfather took a job on the railroad in 1919. And his parents were both railroad workers when they met at the Temple station one night shortly after his father returned from World War II.

Stephens said Amtrak has come full circle since he punched his first ticket here in 1973, when riders upset over high gas prices packed the rail cars.

“The phone would ring constantly. If we hung the phone up, the minute it hit the cradle it would ring again.”

But the station closed for five years during a slowdown in the 1990s. Amtrak transferred Stephens to Austin. But the Temple native kept an eye on the shuttered depot.

“He and his dad looked out for the building,” said Jed Olcott, an Amtrak ticket taker for more than 20 years. “He had a lot to do with this building being refurbished.”

When Amtrak reopened the depot in the late 1990s, Stephens returned.

Amtrak’s ridership has increased significantly in 2008. Again, high gas prices are the overriding factor. And Monday morning, a steady stream of passengers filed in to the depot and kept the phone ringing.

Someone asked Stephens for a restaurant recommendation. Molly’s Deli and Bakery. Another needed help with a stingy coke machine that took her money but wouldn’t eject her soft drink. Stephens knew just where to thump it. And Peggy Frederick, a regular traveler who has known Stephens for more than 20 years, brought him a souvenir baseball cap from a recent trip to Savannah, Ga.

“We’re going to miss him,” she said.