Several years ago a few of us here were using Google Earth to look for RR Roundhouses. (I have lost track of the thread where it was discussed and the names of those that were exchanging info.) In another recent thread I mentioned my list and it was requested to make it available to others.
I have decided to do it in small increments. There are about 80 States/Countries in the list, some have just one entry and some have a couple dozen; at 487 entries there are too many to list all at once and have any meaningful discussion about them. So, I have decided I will just take my alphabetized list and post a group of about 20 every other day or so. It should take about a month and a half to get the whole list in this thread. After we have gone though my list, I will make the (updated and probably corrected) Google Earth KMZ file and my Excel spreadsheet available to anyone that wants them.
Please note that my fingers sometimes decide to press keys that my brain didn't select, so there may be some errors in the list (and sometimes my brain directs my fingers wrongly, too... Last night I discovered that the roundhouse I listed in "Caliente, California" is really in Nevada! Oops!).
Also, I sometimes have trouble deciding with which city the place is properly associated, so I may list a city that makes no sense to those that know the real place.
So, if you find a silly mistake, please just point it out without too much snickering or flame and I will correct my list.
If you know of more turntables, roundhouses or transfer tables, please post info about them and I will add them to my list. Please give more information than just that there used to be one in some city, I am willing to hunt for a new place using Google Earth, but try to give some more detail about where it was, like; the direction from the center of the city/town, bounding streets or other landmarks, etc. If I can find specific evidence on Google Earth of where it existed, I will add it to the list, otherwise it will have to just exist on your personal list.
I will list the State/Country, City, Lat and Lon.
If you highlight the Lat,Lon here and type Ctrl-C, then go to Google Earth, click in the "Fly to" text box in the Search tab, then type Cntl-V and click the magnifying glass icon (or type the Enter key), Google Earth to take you to that location, and you can zoom in or out to your liking.
Also, note that Google Earth is constantly updating the images, but has a feature called Historical Imagery where you can view the older images. Some of the places I have found are now parking lots, interstate highways, other buildings or even farm fields, but if you use the Historical Imagery feature you will find what I did a few years ago. (The Historical Imagery icon is the clock icon in the toolbar at the top of the Google Earth window [7th from the left]. Just click it and a slider bar will appear that you can drag to the left to see the older images.)
Here is the first 25 in my list:
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Try: 50° 23' 17'' N 105° 32' 15'' W - - - - Moose Jaw , Saskatchewan, Canada.
Thanks, but... Yep, have that one. It will show up in this thread when I get down to "S" in the alphabet. (I am going by the first letter of the State in the U.S., Province in Canada, and Country elsewhere.) I will post the next 38 in my list (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Cuba and Czech Republic) tomorrow
AGAIN, I didn't READ the message before answering, ----sorry !
Got waylaid by real life, sorry... here is the next batch:
Have fun!
Next up, a rather short list of lots of places: Washington DC, Delaware, Denmark, England, Florida, France, Georgia, Guatemala, Hawaii, and Hungary.
Of your two San Francisco, CA entries, one (the first) was for the State Belt on the Embarcadero -- the roundhouse is still intact, having been converted into offices.
What caught my eye was tthe second -- the Fisherman's Wharf terminus of the Powell-Hyde cable car line. There is another similar turntable at the other end of the line, at the foot of Powell Street (at Market Street). I can't figure out coordinates, but if you search 1 Powell St, San Francisco, CA on a map search program, you should be able to make it out.
Also, the 2 Richmond, CA locations appear to be the same ex-Santa Fe yard. One turntable is still clealy visible. Was their a second, or is the 2nd (slightly to the NE) the location of an old engine house?
Thanks! Add another Turntable to the list for California:
The 'north end' is the one at:
Are there other turntables for the cable cars? Some of the tracks seem to diverge and head off in other directions than just between the two turntables I have now.
The 2nd Richmond one is in a seperate yard to the northeast... Parallel to 13th St. near Costa Ave). I have it labeled (in other notes) as being part of "BART". On Google Earth, the images show lots of what appear to be passenger cars at that site.
The 1st one (to the southeast, the yard runs parallel and between Castro Ave and Richmond Pkwy) is a freight yard (tank cars, covered hoppers, etc.) and what appears to be an engine terminal (lots of engines around).
Found another one in CA...
I think this is another BART terminus similar to the one in Richmond.
I need to follow these lines around a bit more to see if there are others.
And an OOPS! in the Richmond coordinates... no wonder you could not find it!
The two Richmond sites should be:
EDIT: 8/16/2011
add:
Of course there is one more SanFrancisco cable car turntable -- the north-end terminus of the Powell-Hyde line at Bay & Taylor Streets. (Both Poweel-Hyde & Powell-Mason lines have the same south terminus, as previously noted, at Powell & Market.)
Some of the other cable car lines go to the California Street line, which goes along California St. from Van Ness Ave to Market St at Drumm St -- but neither terminus has a turntable, since those cable cars are double-ended.
The "cable car barn" (and Cable Car Museum) is on Mason St, between Washington & Jackson Streets. Not really a "roundhouse", and I don't know if there is a turntable inside the building, but that's where they park!
Here are some more:
Next time I will do at least some of the "I"'s, Long list (89) if I do all of them at one time. Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, and Italy.
First, Thank you to MudChicken for info about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific that lead to 3 new entries in my list and one correction (all reflected in today's list).
Here are the "I"s:
Note: the first of the 3 for Cedar Rapids, is not findable using Google Earth. I have an old (and deteriorating) large panoramic photo of the area that shows two large roundhouses, one of which is detectable using Google Earth, and I used that to guess at the Lat/Lon of the other.
Short list next time, Japan, Kansas, Kentucky and Lousiana. (And that will not even be 1/2 way!)
J, K & L
Just the "M"'s next.
KANSAS: Ellis, Herington,Hoisington,Pratt, Topeka ,Parsons (TrT &TuT),Syracuse,Coolidge,Elkhart,Belleville,Liberal,Pittsburg, Coffeyville,Chanute, St. Francis (now the turntable at CRRM-Golden CO); Great Bend
There's a two-stall Milwaukee roundhouse at Calmar, IA. This was field-checked and extensively photographed by me last year. It stands open and empty, but it's solid.
There's also a mostly-filled turntable pit at Manilla, IA.
Thanks, Mudchicken: I found evidence of a Roundhouse and/or Turntable in 6 of those cities, but I cannot find anything at all in the others:
Thanks Zwingle: two more in Iowa:
The list is at 499 entries now.
Whoops, make that 501.
Hint Coffeyville: N37 01' 46.0" W95 37' 28.1" http://local527.freeservers.com/photo.html
Hint Coolidge: N 38 02 28.0 W102 01' 02.8 http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM90YV_Coolidge_Kansas anything aerial pre-1985 ought to show the RH floor (after that two large polebarn haysheds start obscuring the brickwork)
Hint Syracuse: N37 58' 56.5" W 101 45' 41.6 http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2149328 a PBX tower & radio system dogshouse sit on the RH pit along with two grain elevator storage tracks now.
Hint: Elkhart: N 36 59' 49.0" W101 53' 53.4" (1913-1926 Roundhouse moved after 1926 to Boise City OK (Boise City Terminal N36 42' 58.8", W 102 30' 41.6" after Cimmarron/Colmor Cutoff got serious, 4 Stall at Elkhart, 26 at Boise City w/ provisions to double)
Hint: Pratt Kansas had 3 Roundhouses (CRIP ATSF & A&N/WNW) at one point....busy place
Hint: Downs, KS had a MoPac 10 bay RH N 39 30' 07.5" W 98 33' 01.6" http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/d/downs.html
Hint: Horton, KS http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/2004winter_quastler.pdf http://www.rits.org/www/structures/Heidi/HORTON.JPG
Hint: Herrington, KS http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1572908
Diningcar probably knows of several more......
Semper Vaporo --
You may have to subtract one (if you had it on your Louisiana list) --
"Historical train turntable, buildings razed" in Cullen, LA.
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Historical-train-turntable-buildings-razed-2135611.php
Okay... added more in Kansas:
And, no I had not found the one in Cullen, Louisiana, but since it does show in Google Earth, then I am adding it to the list.
To reiterate... if I can find evidence of where the roundhouse or turntable exists, or at one time existed, then I will add it to the list. It may only be a depression where the turntable pit was or a vague semicircular remnant of a wall or radial striations on the ground, and that is enough to add it to my list.
I have a few that I was able to determine where the roundhouse was by triangulating off of buildings, streets and/or other landmarks that appear in a photograph and pinpointed the center of the roundhouse on Google Earth by looking for those landmarks that are still visible and doing the same triangulation.
if I can't find it or find a way to determine where the center of the turntable/roundhouse WAS then I won't add it to "MY" list (feel free to add anything to any list YOU have).
And yours is such a great list! Quite a project! Thank you again for sharing it.
The "M"'s:
Millinocket Maine , roundhouse, turntable,coal tower, ashpit......
You might be able to find something in North Yard, Muskegon, Michigan (not sure they had a turntable, but it would be logical).
You can definitely find evidence of the roundhouse and turntable at Durand, Michigan. Go northwest from the diamond to the yard, then stay along the south side of the yard.
Grand Haven definitely had a turntable at one point (I understand the engine house was rectangular, though): I couldn't find any evidence of it, though, as things have been pretty well paved over in that area. The old GTW station was at 1 North Harbor Drive; go northeast on Harbor Drive another block and a half to where it was...it's now under the street and/or a parking lot.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Zwingle,
There’s one more in ILL you missed for sure.
The C&EI had a round house [still there i think] and turn table [gone] in Villa Grove ILL. 39 09’32.00”N 88 09’ 43.19” w
And the NYC and PRR both had round house in Terre Haute Ind, but neither one of the footprints show up on Google maps for me. You might have better luck.
NYC was in this area, 39 29’ 54.31”N 87 22’ 48.04”W
PRR was somewhere round here, 39 28’ 54.76”N 87 21’ 53.76”W
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/4309
I think inch53 mistyped, I found the round house at
39 51'32N 88 09'43.19W
James
Consolidation of the above help...
Thanks for the leads, everybody.
Several of the above are only visible if you select just the right historical image. Ground vegetation certainly can hide or enhance the ability to detect the footprint of a roundhouse.
Some of the others I cannot find any evidence, even though my somewhat practiced eye at finding roundhouses sure says that there just had to have been one in a certain area, just based on the topology of the land (and tracks and streets). But without the real clues of radial lines on the ground or semi-circular walls/foundations, I just don't feel like guessing the location of the center of the turntable (roundhouse 'focal point').
I was just wandering around on Google Earth again. I zoomed way out with all the pushpins showing all the turntables/roundhouses I have found (makes for a mighty yellow screen!). I do this every once in a while, looking at the gaps and blank areas. I then go looking for towns in one of those areas that I figure were associated with a RR or maybe cattle or grains or maybe transloading to ships. Way too many show no signs there were ever RRs in the vicinity, even though I am sure they could not have existed without them.
Most often I find a place where there is an area where I am sure one should be, but find an Interstate highway interchange instead.
Often I have to switch to different years in the Historical Imagery feature, and it is not always the oldest image that proves the most useful in finding the telltales of where a turntable or roundhouse were.
Every once in a while I stumble upon something.
I was looking at central Michigan and figured Lansing should have something, but I could not find a thing. So i followed a rail line to the southwest right to Battle Creek... Bingo! Another one! And follow some East and yet another one in Jackson. I decided that Muskegon should have had some RR operations, but found nothing, so I worked my way north and found something in Ludington. Following lines north to Manistee finds another.
This could go on all afternoon, but I have other things to do now.
The "N"'s:
In Louisiana, the New Orleans Public Belt RR (NOPB.com) has a turntable still in use. I'm using a borrowed computer and don't have access to Google Earth, so don't have coordinates handy, but sattelite view on Mapquest shows a good view of it. Go to 4822 Tchoupitoulas St, New Orleans, La.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.