As one who has long believed historic RR equipment should be sheltered in some of the buildings from which it once worked, these two demolitions are very sad, but not surprising. For over 20 years, I've mostly heard "it can't be done" excuses from within our own preservation community, while expensive plans were developed for new, non-historic structures like MORT in Sacramento, and others. When Wisconsin Central took over the old Soo Line, it had something like 11 roundhouses on the property; I think there are only two left, with part of the main Soo facility in Minneapolis also still standing last I knew. At least a couple more roundhouses fall every year, with scarcely a mention.
If roundhouses are saved, they are usually developed into something they never were by persons with little interest in their history, such as the office building in Kansas City. Evanston plans something similar, and they're hanging airplanes in Spencer's backshop. Some of this comes from the historic preservation mantra "every old house cannot become an old house museum". That makes sense, of course, for mundane, lookalike mill buildings, factories and warehouses, but railroad roundhouses are unique and rare and there are hundreds of locomotives rusting away out in the open that could use a better home. Restoring a roundhouse as a roundhouse is usually less costly than adaptive reuse as offices or housing.
The loss of the Tawas facility is especially sad, as it looked to be in good shape before demolition.
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