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Y ou don't hear it coming. It just explodes with a roar, rattling the room to the rafters and shocking the system of professionals mired in the minutiae of a lawsuit or some city project.

IT, is the Acela, the high-speed train that runs between Boston and Washington, and seemingly right through a conference room in the law firm of Volterra, Goldberg & Jacobs in what was once Attleboro's southbound railroad depot.

The blast of air and vibration caused by tons of steel thundering through at speeds up to 150 mph slams into the brick and granite building, but the station, built in 1906, holds up just fine, even if its occupants are a little unnerved.

The train is gone before the noise and tremors are, but talking stops and for a few seconds everyone is reminded where they are, just a few feet from the main line of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, a rail line that helped build many cities, including Attleboro.

While the Acela blows through town without stopping, dozens of commuter trains used by thousands of people stop every day. Commuter trains heading north and south rumble, roll and squeak to a halt, with hundreds of workaday riders embarking or disembarking from early morning to late evening.

Commuters cut through Volterra's parking lot to walk home and drivers use it to pick up a spouse or friend.

Commotion and people abound, but Volterra says he wouldn't have it any other way.

"We love the train," he said. "We have no regrets. It's a unique building, it's one of a kind. This building works for us."

And his firm has worked for the building.

If it wasn't for the firm, the depot, designed by architect H.H. Richardson and is one of the city's few examples of Romanesque architecture along with the northbound station which Richardson also designed, would probably have been lost to history more than 20 years ago.

In 1986, Volterra and his partners, which then included Robert Mangiaratti, bought the defunct station to replace cramped quarters on North Main Street.

They restored the unused and vandalized structure which was almost destroyed by a fire in 1984, and it's housed lawyers and a couple of other businesses ever since.

"It was in terrible, terrible shape. There was a huge whole in the floor. It was a wreck," Volterra said. "I think it would have come down if we didn't buy it."

Volterra's firm was the only bidder on the ramshackle piece of history, then owned by the MBTA. It had been unused since the 1970s, according to information compiled by Mary Elizabeth Pyne, an historical preservationist whose research resulted in both south and northbound depots being put on the National Register of Historic Places.

Volterra and his partners spent $82,000 for the building and another $500,000 to restore it.

Historic preservation tax credits helped cut the cost a little, but it was mostly money out of pocket, he said.

But there are no second thoughts.

"I think it preserved an important part of Attleboro's history," Volterra said. "It was a lot of money, but it was worth it."

Volterra's effort saved a local landmark, put a thriving law firm in the heart of downtown and added some business and office space as well.

The conference room is used by lawyers and clients, but it has also been the site of many meetings of the Attleboro Redevelopment Authority, which has been focused for years on a massive project to revitalize downtown by using the railroad, which has been crucial to the city's growth and development since it was first laid out in the 1830s.

Without the railroad, Attleboro would likely have remained just "a wide place in the road," as one newspaper reporter put it in a story 40 years ago about the opening of the railroad through Attleboro.

The railroad sparked growth, helped build the jewelry industry and now officials hope it will spur new life downtown.

The ARA and city are using the line and the fact that it's an important center of transportation to win tens of millions of government dollars to remake downtown with transit improvements, including a new commuter rail parking garage, a bus depot and new streets.

All of that they hope will spur the private construction of condominiums and retail space. The aim is to entice commuters to make downtown home.

Whether that happens, remains to be seen.

But what's already happening, partly because of the importance of the station, is the renovation of the northbound depot just across the tracks from Volterra's office.

Like Volterra's building, it was renovated in the mid-1980s.

But the worst economic downturn in the nation's history since the Great Depression has prompted another overhaul, thanks to a federal government plan to stimulate the economy and put people to work by paying for worthy public projects.

Francis Gay, administrator of the Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority, which manages the MBTA owned property, said the aim is to preserve a historical site and as well as upgrade a railroad station that's been in continual use for more than a century.

Gay said he supervised the first renovation and is doing the same for this project, which will undo a lot of the previous work and make the station more like it was when it was first built 103 years ago.

The most recent renovation took place after MBTA plans to close the station in the mid-1980s were stopped by outraged commuters and the late former Mayor Gerald Keane, Gay said.

Back then, walls were installed to create offices in what was once an unobstructed floor plan, typical of railroad stations. Those walls are going to go, Gay said.

"The bulk of the building will be pretty wide open, as it was originally," he said. "We're going to save whatever we can and replicate as much as possible."

The job is costing around $700,000 and the cash is coming from federal economic stimulus money.

When complete, the building will be ready to roll well into its second century, Gay said.

It was built in 1906, before the city was a city, and just after some 200 Irish laborers finished the monumental task of raising the railroad bed above street grade which eliminated 13 hazardous crossings, according to Pyne's research.

While the depots are historical because of their architecture and what the railroad has meant and will mean to the city in the future, they have also been the site of important events.

President William Howard Taft spoke to about 8,000 residents from a train car there in 1912. He came back in 1916.

And the New Haven Railroad unveiled its new "Comet" locomotive there in 1935, exactly 100 years after tracks were first laid through the city.

It was an event recorded by a score of newsreel cameras ensconced on a flatbed rail car. Other photographers took pictures from airplanes above, according to a report of the event in a history of the New Haven R.R. by J.W. Swanberg.

The Comet was a new lightweight locomotive designed to save money by saving fuel and running more efficiently with an aerodynamic design, he said.

At the time the New Haven, like other railroads, was losing passengers to the automobile, and improvements to Route 1 added to the threat.

The New Haven and other rail lines were striving to make rail travel quicker and more comfortable, Swanberg said.

The Comet could transport commuters over the 44 miles between Providence and Boston in 45 minutes, Swanberg said in his history.

City resident, official and businessman Tony Viveiros has seen 17 years of depot history up close while selling tickets, coffee, newspapers and doughnuts out of Tony's Whistlestop, tucked into a corner of the northbound station.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of commuters flow through there every day, building their lives and living the latest chapter in the history of the railroad.

For Viveiros, the place is special. It's more than just a railroad station.

He said it has an "old time warmth," which he's hoping will be preserved when the doors are reopened.

"It's one of the last stations that has a homey touch," Viveiros said.

It's wooden benches, fan-style windows and exposed brickwork create an atmosphere not often replicated in modern buildings, he said.

He's a little worried about the changes under way.

"I hope it's not going to be cold and institutionalized," Viveiros said of the remake. "It can be open, but it can still be a building of warmth."

He views his business as a throwback to the old days when retailers knew their customers and created a friendly place to do business.

It's where many people start their workday and have their first cup of coffee.

"It's sort of a home away from home for a lot of commuters," Viveiros said. "A lot of them have mentioned that to me over the years."

Viveiros and family members who help him have come to know their customers well.

Some they know by name and some by what they order, like "the small black coffee with one sugar."

"We see them on a daily basis, we may not know their names, but we know what they drink," he said. "But a lot of people we get to know on a first name basis and we get to exchange pleasantries every day."

Sometimes commuters come in late with just enough time to grab their coffee and a paper, but have no time to pay, or don't have the money.

True to the small town spirit, Viveiros tells them to pay later.

"It's like the old days," he said. "We just say, 'Don't worry about it. See you tomorrow.'"

While the building is homey, it's also tough, Viveiros said.

"The station is built well enough to withstand the vibrations of all the locomotives that have gone by for a hundred years," he said. "It's a testament to the workmanship of a hundred years ago."

Viveiros said it's his desire to be there pouring coffee and selling tickets for some time to come.

"I hope to continue to serve those people and get back in there and get back to normal," he said.