What is the largest railroad structure to have been relocated for preservation? Several depots, interlocking towers, and water towers come to mind. Has anyone relocated and re-erected a roundhouse, engine house, or shop?

Smokebox

The West Coast Railway Heritage Park at Squamish, British Columbia has moved a Pacific Great Eastern car house to their property.

The building is at least 200 feet long. Guide book says" Built in 1915 and moved to the site in 1991- it is thought to be the largest wood frame building ever moved in one piece."


the above quote is from The guide to Canada's Railway Heritage, see a photo on page 21.

They have also just built a two story station building near it.

Ted Miles

Don’t know if the Seaboard Station in Hamlet North Carolina is the Largest but it was impressive, the following three links are worth seeing, with the third being the most interesting to RYPN members.
Good Picture of the move across the tracks, after a 90% spin to re-position.

http://www.robl.w1.com/pix-nc/I-030296.htm

Another nice site that shows 24 shots of the station move:

http://www.irememberhamlet.com/movestation.html

Last this is a great North Carolina State site showing the Hamlet station move and other Railroad station renovation projects.

http://www.bytrain.org/istation/ihamlet.html

Meiji-mura near Nagoya, Japan has several railroad buildings among the 60 structures moved to the site. They include the brick Iwakura substation and the Shimbashi Machinery Hall, an iron frame wooden structure perhaps 80 meters long. The collection includes several impressive iron bridges, but the highlight is the entrance and common area of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel. Add a working steam train, a separate trolley line, the Emperor’s private cars and a steam coach. This attraction was built in the 1960s and while it hasn’t changed much over the years, it may be the world’s best maintained museum.

While not preservation related, the Illinois Central moved an eight-storey brick office building twice. Known as the Dowie building, its final resting place was near Central Station, where it was know as the Annex. It was connected to the headhouse by an enclosed walkway on the third floor. Built in the 1880s and demolished in 1973.

I don't remember the year,but L&N studied moving their Knoxville,TN station from it's stub end downtown location to the west Knoxville yard on the mainline.One of L&N's fastest passenger trains avoided the long back up move and stopped in the west Knoxville yards as early as the 1920s.This station survived long enough to be restored for the 1982 World's Fair and housed restaraunts for almost 20 years, but currently only houses a couple of offices.

I forgot to add that L&N deemed moving the Knoxville station as too costly.http://www.restoreknoxville.com/r2004/a ... 0Landmarks

For what it is worth, the restoration on the Hamlet station is exceptional. Susan and I blundered into the place after dropping our son off at Camp Lejeune. It was closed, but a very kind gentleman with the keys gave us a tour - very impressive. It is worth stopping to see it if you are anywhere in the area.

I suspect the most massive railroad structure moved as a preservation effort is the concrete coal dock in downtown Toronto. I'm told this is preserved along with the CP (or CN? they were next to each other) roundhouse. This complex is isolated from the railroad system by the baseball stadium. I don't know if it contains any railroad artifacts. I haven't been back to Toronto since VIA stopped selling whole coaches for $600.

So no one has relocated and re-erected a Roundhouse to date? I know of some replicas, such as Golden CO, and the "real one" on pallets (Lenzen/ San Jose).

Smokebox

smokebox,

The closest project to rebuilding a historic round house is the one at Steam Town National Historic Site.

However, I have not been there, and understand it has many liberties with the original building and the placement of the turntable.

Large brick and stone structures are almost impossible to put back.

And a second thought. There is a new six or eight stall round house in Phillips Maine, but it is built with cinder blocks not cut stone as was the original. I think it does use the original pit and turntable bridge though.

It was built for 24 inch gauge tracks.

Ted Miles

The Detroit Toledo and Milwaukee roundhouse from Marshall has be recreated at Greenfield Village. The turntable is former Pere Marquette though.

http://www.hfmgv.org/village/railroadjunction/roundhouse/default.asp

The original Phillips roundhouse was never finished.
only a stone foundation was ever built.
It was started by the Phillips & Rangeley railroad, but was never finished because it wasnt needed..the Sandy River had an engine facility right across the river.

I was called the "old stone fort" and old locomotives went there to die.
they were just hauled there and left to rust away (what was left was eventually scrapped)

Then, 100 years later (or so), the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes museum finished the construction of the roundhouse on top of the original foundation.

Scot

Well being a large brick or stone structure doesn't mean it can't be done...



Examples are these non-railroad structures that provide fine examples of Historic preservation in new locations of large stone and Brick structures. Granted saving these types of structures tend to be on the more expensive side!

London Bridge, Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/london.html
Very interesting preservation and movement of a stone structure.

The Cape Hatteras lighthouse.
http://www.labs.net/anaiselise/lhse/lhse.htm
Some great pictures here of the move!

Any idea as to what pieces were salvage in this recreation? The Ford Museum RH is very stunning.

Smokebox

The folks at the Henry Ford tell me there is very little of the original masonry saved from the Marshall roundhouse. I seem to recall that the original soft bricks were used to build only an outbuilding at Dearborn. I saw the Marshall roundhouse before it was even proposed for reconstruction, and gravity and the weather had utterly dismantled it. It wasn't readily recognizable as a roundhouse; only a corner or two were still standing. I suspect that some of the metalwork made its way into the new building in the form of door hinges, truss parts, and so forth. The new building is concrete block with brick sheathing in the old style. Very pretty.