Of all the brilliant time wasters on the Internet, my guiltiest pleasure is Google Earth. That little blue marble just stares at me from my desktop, daring me to dive into another ridiculous journey across time and topography, leading me at helicopter level across old neighborhoods, familiar landscapes, and most often, railroad landmarks. My latest Google Earth habit: roundhouses.
When I first started playing with Google Earth a couple of years ago, I zoomed in on my hometown of Niles, Mich., and almost the first visible manmade structure I could spot was the old New York Central roundhouse (pictured at right) not far from my childhood home. It was visible from a virtual altitude of 80,000 feet! Built in 1919 and boasting 30 stalls and a 100-foot turntable, it remains in good condition, kept alive by a warehouse operator who calls the place Roundhouse Supply. The building has a white roof now and is surrounded by a spacious green lawn, so its unmistakable shape can be spotted easily from the air. This discovery sent me off looking for other roundhouses in Michigan.
Lately I’ve been at it again. This time I blame writer John Hankey for keeping me up on the computer well past midnight. John’s excellent essay on roundhouses in the March 2010 issue of Trains got me thinking about roundhouses and I rediscovered how easy it was to find them from satellite images. Off I went, trying to locate and list as many of these magnificent but endangered buildings as possible. Joining me on the search were Dave Ingles, Classic Trains’ senior editor, and my good friends Greg McDonnell and John Corns.
We could have looked forever, but after a couple of weeks we stopped and I submitted our list to Trains Editor Jim Wrinn, who was working with contributor Wayne Laepple on a separate list of existing roundhouses, published here in conjunction with John Hankey’s story. Wayne’s list includes roundhouses that remain in railroad service and roundhouses that don’t.
But I still have one more list called “ghost roundhouses.” You’ve probably seen them yourself: roundhouses torn down ages ago but still visible from the air as broken-down, overgrown foundations off in a forgotten corner of a railroad yard. We found their haunting imprints in numerous places. Some were easy to spot, like Chicago & North Western’s nearly full circle at Escanaba, Mich., or quite obscure, such as Rock Island’s in El Reno, Okla. My favorite is the ghostly arc of the old Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse (pictured at right) just east of the PRR station in Fort Wayne, Ind. Once a terminal for K4 and T1 steam locomotives, the roundhouse was the home office of John R. Crosby, a PRR steam fireman and diesel engineer who for 25 years regaled Trains readers with his tales from the cab.
Of course, the list below is only a start. If you have favorites from your own Google Earth overflights, I’d love to hear about them.
— Kevin P. Keefe
GHOST ROUNDHOUSES:ArkansasPine Bluff: ex-Cotton BeltNorth Little Rock: ex-MoPacIndianaAnderson: ex-NYC/Big Four Bloomington: ex-MononFort Wayne: ex-PRRPeru: ex-WabashLouisianaShreveport: ex-Texas & PacificMarylandHagerstown, ex-Western MarylandMichiganBattle Creek: ex-Grand Trunk WesternDurand: ex-GTWEscanaba: ex-Chicago & North WesternKalamazoo: ex-NYCMinnesotaBrainerd: ex-Northern PacificNew YorkBuffalo: ex-Erie, SK YardOneonta: ex-Delaware & HudsonOhioAshtabula: ex-NYCCanton (Gambranus): ex-Wheeling & Lake ErieMarion: ex-Big FourMingo Junction: ex-PRROklahomaEl Reno: ex-Rock IslandPennsylvaniaErie: ex-PRRTexasGalveston: ex-Sante FeFort Worth: ex-Santa FeWisconsinButler: ex-C&NWTomah: ex-Milwaukee RoadLaCrosse: ex-Milwaukee RoadLaCrosse: ex-Burlington
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