These days its hard to find remnents of Passenger car shops even harder then finding old roundhouses
The Northern Pacific main passenger car shop was in St. Paul, now Bandana Square.
Ed Burns
Happily Retired NP-BN-BNSF from Northtown.
B&O's Passenger Shop was Mt. Clare in Baltimore. Mt. Clare shop personnel also rebuilt and retyped steam engines.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Atlantic Coast Line's passenger car shops were Emerson Shops in Rocky Mount, NC. The Seaboard's shops were in Portsmouth, VA. Southern Rwy.'s shops were in Spartanburg and, I believe, Chattanooga.
The Southern's shops were actually in Hayne (HE), a few miles west of Spartanburg, where the line from Biltmore joined the main line.
Johnny
C&NW passenger car servicing was at the California Avenue shops. I think Metra does some work there.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm C&NW passenger car servicing was at the California Avenue shops. I think Metra does some work there.
The long distance cars were maintained at a shop located between 40th St and the Belt just west of the current locomotive servicing facility. It's very visible on the Historic Arerials archives. The California Ave shops were built new to service the bilevel fleet, don't know what was at that location prior. METRA does its heavy repairs/rebuilds at the Rocket House (47th st.).
New York Central used Beech Grove, the same shops Amtrak uses today.
Illinois Central maintained its MU cars for suburban service at Burnside shops, it is now the site of Chicago State University.
Would the OP and others please note, it's Nickel Plate, not Nickle Plate.
You might remember it the way I did as a kid, thanks to the Mickey Mouse Club theme song:
"N i c, k e l, P l a t e........."Nickel Plate, Nickel Plate, forever let us hold our (fallen) bannners high, high, high, high!"
Buslist, you are right. The CNW 40th St. (west of Pulaski RD. formerly 40th St., 4000 W) shops were originally for steam locomotives. The two concrete coal towers were there and once three roundhouses as well. The newer M-19A diesel shop is still standing. The Streamliner yard was adjacent. The primary commuter coach yard was at Erie St. until sometime in the early 1950s when much of the valuable land was sold. After that all commuter servicing moved to California Avenue (2800 W) through the present (near the Keeler flag stop for employees).
C&NW shops and yard were at 40th Avenue, not 40th St. 40th Avenue later became Crawford Ave, then Pulaski Rd. Then, as now, 4000 west.
rcdrye C&NW shops and yard were at 40th Avenue, not 40th St. 40th Avenue later became Crawford Ave, then Pulaski Rd. Then, as now, 4000 west.
You are correct and I should know better. Cicero ave. was 48th to my Grandparents and Lavergen was 50th Ave. The CA&E when built went to 52nd Ave and IRM has 50th Ave station because the Town of Cicero didn't change the name on many of the streets.
In 1913, as part of an effort to eliminate duplicate street names, the city council
named the West Side 40th Street after Peter Crawford, an early Cicero Township
landowner. In 1933, Mayor Edward Kelly sought to consolidate his ties to Polish voters
by renaming Crawford Avenue to honor Count Casimir Pulaski, a Polish hero
Sone of the PRR passenger car shop complex still exists in Renovo, PA.
So when I am walking around a old railroad yard what kind of buildings and equipement would I be looking for that would have been used for passenger cars? I can only think of Metro North ex NYC Croton Harmon which might be the oldest car shops around. Then there would have been Cedar Hill Yard in New Haven CT.
Transfer tables seemed to have been popular around large carshops.
The Missouri Pacific had passenger car shops in Sedalia, MO, 94 miles east of Kansas City. I don't think this was the only location for passenger car however.
MidlandMike Transfer tables seemed to have been popular around large carshops.
Wasn't Bellevue oh the site for nkp shops.
The Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, later the western part of the Erie Railroad, built its car shops in Kent, Ohio in 1867. These shops built passenger and freight cars until about 1930; in the early years some locomotives were built there, too. For a few decades, more than half the working men in Kent were employed there.
Although most of the cut ashlar buildings were destroyed by arson in 1930, a significant part of them remained and has been used as a factory ever since. Built originally for 6' gauge, the old-fashioned doors make it easy to see in the mind's eye the wide-stacked, wood-burning American-type locomotives and wooden cars of railroading's early days.
The Kent Historical Society is proud of the city's heritage as a railroad town; a few years ago it held a huge meeting and open house at the Car Shops, as they still are called, and many people turned out to tour them and recall the days when their ancestors worked there.
ALL:
The GN passenger shop was in St. Paul, but I dont know the location. The CBQ coach shop was in Aurora, Ill.
Though much reduced, AT&SF used the Topeka shops still used by BNSF to maintain the business car fleet. SP used Sacramento, site of the California State RR Museum.
B&O Mt. Clare Shops approx. 1908
NP Eddie ALL: The GN passenger shop was in St. Paul, but I dont know the location. The CBQ coach shop was in Aurora, Ill. Ed Burns
The GN's passenger car shops were at Dale St. and were named as such.
Beaulieu:
Thanks for the information. About 1985 or so, I had a BN Material Department truck run through the Twin Cities. By that time Dale Street was the home of the wrecking crew and Material Department. X-GN Bridal Veil repaired business cars. I remember the "Glacier View" on supports while the fellows converted it from steam heat to HEP.
Sorry Ed, I was wrong, the Passenger Car shops for the GN were in Waite Park, MN just west of St. Cloud.
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I believe the New Haven's car shops were at Readville, just south of Boston, where the Shawmut (?) branch from South Station rejoins the main line through Back Bay and also continues as the secondary main that used to go to Willamantic and through Hartford to Waterbury but now just goes as a suburban branch to Blackstone. For mu cars, the shops were at Van Ness, the Bronx, same locatoin as for electric locomotives.
Ceder Hill may have had freight-car shops, but the main one was also at Readville.
You are correct that the GN had shops in Waite Park, MN, but they were for freight cars only. A retired GN-BN-BNSF conductor and member of the GNRHS said that the GN's passenger car shops were at GN Mississippi Street. I should add that the Waite Park shops built box cars for both the GN and SPS. Another oddity was that the NP Brainerd, MN shops built two batches of cabooses for the SPS, add ons to two NP orders. Robert Del Grosso's BN caboose can give you information on those orders and numbers. The GN's Waite Park shop also built some cabooses for the GN.
Steam Plants would have been nessary to keep cars warm overnight in Carshops. The Erie would have had a Steam Plant in Youngstown Ohio for its Cleveland-Youngstown Commuter run.
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