A big thank you goes out to Ian Deck, a regular reader and commenter on this site, for passing along these photos and allowing me to post them.
He took these photos the evening of June 15, 2010, as demolition started on the remains of Crawford Yard roundhouse.
Sad to see more of Windsor’s rail history disappear….
Photo from the John Stefani Collection
Above is a picture of the Crawford Roundhouse, date unknown.
Here’s the location of the roundhouse. It’s kind of tucked out of the way, off Crawford.
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Sad. I’m going to assume that it was the last roundhouse in the Windsor area, right? Makes one wonder if there are any left in the Detroit metro area.
Are roundhouses no longer needed? Or is there a modern alternative for a roundhouse?
It appears they haven’t been needed for many years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundhouse
Of course, as buildings used for servicing locomotives, it can be argued they retained their function — unless servicing is no longer done at this location.
From quick glances as I was driving by, it looked to me like that building was in rather poor condition.
It is sad, but the building wasn’t probably used much anymore. I am sure it would be pretty dirty inside. Perhaps the land will be used for more yard space. On a side note, why does Tecumseh jog so much in that area? I don’t travel that route much but from the Google Map it is noticeable. Most roundhouses will live on though, on model railroad sets and virtual ones, like Trainz.
Wasn’t there one on Riverside Drive?
I believe that there were two roundhouses on Riverside Drive. One operated by CN (originally the Great Western Railway), and one operated by Norfolk & Western (originally the Wabash Railroad). I’m not sure of the time line that these were torn down, but my guess was the early 90s.
Additionally, there was a roundhouse between Howard and South Cameron (where the Roundhouse Centre Plaza stands now). This was used by Michigan Central and New York Central, but hadn’t been used since the 1960s. It was torn down in the late 80s when The Roundhouse Centre was built.
Diesel locomotives require much less maintenance than steam engines did, and with more freight moving by truck, and more passengers moving by car, not to mention the struggling manufacturing sector, most railroads aren’t nearly as busy as they once were. Hopefully this trend will reverse some day.
The Essex Terminal Railway still operates a full locomotive maintenance facility for it’s fleet, although technically it is not a roundhouse.
The CP Roundhouse was used for storage for years, it didn’t even have electricity in it. I noticed a few months ago parts that were stored in it were suddenly put outside, so I figured the end was near. Sad to see it go, spent a lot of time getting up-close looks at CP engines in there.
I believe CN and the Wabash/N&W shared the roundhouse on Riverside, didn’t they? I thought (always an iffy thing) that the Wabash ran on the CN via trackage rights to Buffalo and Tonnawanda, N.Y. These were thru train operations, so they didn’t need a big service facility in Windsor. Memory says we were stuck in Chatham on a mid 60’s CNR steam excursion waiting on a Wabash passenger train.
Within the past few years, the Roundhouse has been dead. The only time Units would go in there recently, was for accident report engines, and damaged units that needed to be out of the elements. 1 of the Last units I remember seeing inside (when there was still Power) was a CP 9000 series Engine, that had an Engine fire back around the winter of 2001. The unit sufferened damage and needed to be inspected before moving to to Repaired, and make sure it was road worthy. I have also heard that a few Engines have been through the back wall of the facility as well. With this round house, the newer engines had a hard time going into the Building as well, as the opening was not built for the new modern Wide Cabs. From what I gather the Turntable was still in use, up till a month ago, but I do not know if they will be using it still. The building also had its Asbestos removed the weeks before it was torn down.
Ian….
….I think we may have a mutual friend who put a unit through the back wall of a roundhouse many years ago.
Where does CP and CN do their heavy repairs now?
Well I don’t know the person who did this, but I did hear about it a few times.
As for Heavy Repairs, for CN & CP, they are done in a few locations.
For CN
Woodcrest Shops in Homewood, IL is the main shop for CN
Mac Millan Yard in Toronto (Concord), does some major and minor repair
Montreal has small shops
Walkers Yard in Edmonton,
Transcona in Winnipeg.
As for Car shops, there is one in all of the towns listed, plus small shops all around.
For CP,
Agincourt Yard in Toronto has a minor repair shop
St Luc Shops in Montreal does most GE Repairs
Weston Shops in Winnipeg does Mostly EMD Repairs
Ogden in Calgary does repairs on all units & Repaints
Port Coquitlam Yard in near Vancouver, does mostly GE Repairs
St Paul, Mn, does all American Road units (exSoo line) Repairs and a few others.
As for Car shops, those are few and far between, but most are based in all the major Yards, not in Small yards like Windsor anymore.
>>Shawn
>>Are roundhouses no longer needed? Or is there a modern alternative for a roundhouse?
There sure a use for ’em…the Steamwhistle Brewery in Toronto is in an old roundhouse next to the CN Tower.
Very “tasty” tour too!!
Check out the virtual tour http://www.steamwhistle.ca/tour/virtualTour.php
Last I heard the turntable was still in use, as CP doesn’t have a “Y” to turn engines around on.
Roundhouses are pretty much obsolete, most of them were built for steam engines and thus were never made for the giant diesels of today. It’s entirely impractical. And the diesels can go long distances without requiring service like steam engines did.
DEisels are a heatery breed you can leave them outside running for weeks. An example was the
New York Central spur in Leamington, the F-7 rummblrd away night and day, across from the high school on Talbot St. east.
I operated roundhouse turntable 1955 to 1957 during steam engine era.What an exciting part of my life.So sorry to see it in ruines great loss.
well this isn’t what i wanted to see when i logged in! S.O.B.!
well, thanks Ian and Andrew for the photos. I sure hope they don’t scrap that table. If they don’t need it SOLRS sure could. I think this was one of the last roundhouses for quite some miles. I’m failry sure Detroit has done away with all of theirs as well.
As for the ETR, I always wondered if they had a turntable. There’s picture in the library website titled “essex terminal roundhouse”, and they must have had somewhere to turn the engines as there really arn’t alot of wyes availiable to them….or wern’t?
And there are RR co’s in the states still using roundhouses for their Diesles, CP usually has some pretty hefty boys sitting in the yard though, so yeah, in this case impractical.
damn
Sad to see more railway history erased.
Andrew – on the roundhouse subject, on one of my 1949 DTE maps i noticed on the old LE&DR, just south of the wyandotte subway, it sure looks like there was a turntable, and what seems to be a water tower in what is now an empty lot behind a mechanic/junkyard at Edna and Montreiul. The wedge shaped office itself looks rather railroadie to me as well. Seems a logical place for Hiram to put the LE&DR home base.
I was wondering if you knew anything about it?
Aaron, That’s news to me… I’ve never come across anything about it… I always assumed that they would have been HQ’ed at either the train station in Walkerville or somewhere in the Hiram Walker offices… I don’t know anything about that site, maybe someone who’s a rail expert can help us out…
Aaron – I assume this is what you were talking about right?
you got it! i really think it’s a table. it looks just like the ones on the river, MC on howard, but not so much like the CP table. then. later on in 61, the bridge of the table is gone and the hole filled in, but the circle is still obvious.
hmmm….according to michiganrailroads.net, it doesn’t say where…but there was one in Walkerville somewhere. Out of commision as of ’49 and used by the PM.
i was looking for roundhouse pictures to show my 10 year old granddaughter were her grandpa worked .i am 75 and fired the last handbomer in Winnipeg.i have fired all engine types oil stoker and even worked on diesel oldgen@shaw.ca.worked up from a wiper .enjoyed it now looking for pictures to show my granddaughter.can you help