Thanks to all who responded to the thread about RR steamships. I will be feasting on the responses for some time to come.

Tom Gear's original question was regarding railroad-related artifacts that have been restored without being identified as such. Now that we have discussed steamships in some detail, I got to thinking about what else there may be.

My "train" of thought was railroad infrastructure, such as powerhouses, bridges, and perhaps water tanks. They may have been adaptively reused, and their origins forgotten.

The first powerhouse that comes to mind is the Hudson & Manhattan RR Powerhouse in Jersey City. But how many of the early powerhouses around the country started out as "streetcar plants", providing power for streetcars as well as lighting.

Is the old Powerhouse used by the Forney Transportation Museum in Denver a streetcar plant? How about the Powerhouse Musuem in Sydney, Australia?

The Market Street Powerplant in New Orleans (currently derelict) and the Gable Street Powerplant in Houston (now a wharehouse) probably started out as streetcar plants. (I saw a picture of Gable Street plant with reciprocating steam engines before 1900; near the time of its decommision, it still had a vertical axis steam turbine.)

At the Louisiana Station Powerplant in Baton Rouge (operational, and not open to visitors), there is a single casing steam turbine from a streetcar plant. It was once used a house turbine, and has a three-digit serial number. I am told the (or a) streetcar plant still exists in Baton Rouge, probably as a warehouse.

There is one in Horishima (sp?), Japan that still has roof beams bent by the atomic bomb blast. It is also being used a warehouse.

Was the powerplant on Baltimore's Inner Harbor, later a "Six Flags Powerplant" and now an ESPN sports bar, also a streetcar plant?

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

The Powerhouse
james1@pernet.net

Here in Kingston NY, three former streetcar buildings still exist with new uses: the powerhouse is owned by a scrap metal dealer, one car barn is now the school district warehouse, a second car barn is used by a candy wholesaler.

webmaster@tmny.org

> Is the old Powerhouse used by the Forney
> Transportation Museum in Denver a streetcar
> plant?

Yes it was. It is now the home of a sporing goods store -- the Forney moved out.

Also still in Denver is the Old Spagetti Factory which was the power plant to one of Denver's two cable care lines.

gbrewer@yahoo.com

> Was the powerplant on Baltimore's Inner
> Harbor, later a "Six Flags
> Powerplant" and now an ESPN sports bar,
> also a streetcar plant?

Affirmative, built shortly after 1901 for United Railways. The building now houses a Barnes & Noble bookstore, a Gold's Gym, the ESPN bar, the Hard Rock Cafe, and a bunch of offices.


lner4472@bcpl.net

The former carbarn on South Blvd. in Charlotte now houses a materials storage depot for Duke Power - and is adjacent to the old Southern Ry line now used by Charlotte Trolley. Don't know how many if any of the old P&N houses might still live. Part of Pinoca Shops now used by CSX for car repair - or at least did recently.

The River Street power plant in Savannah is now a substation and on the proposed trolley line. The site of the old carbarn is now a city bus depot and garage.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

Part of the St. Clair Tunnel Company's powerhouse and offices of 1908 still stand in Port Huron above the original 1891 St. Clair River Tunnel on Military Street in Port Huron. Detroit Edison took over part of that complex, and the city of Port Huron tore off the back end of the St. Clair Tunnel Building and turned it into offices for the Port Huron Seaway Terminal in 1959.

Because of two horrible asphxiation accidents in the tunnel with steam around 1900 (in one case and entire crew was killed), the GT created the St. Clair Tunnel Company top operate Baldwin-Westinghouse locos through the tunnel. It ran as a separate entity until 1958, when the electrics were replaced by diesels.

There is a nice link below with a decent history of the basics of the operation:

TJ

http://rs6.loc.gov/pnp/det/4a20000/4a23 ... 23392r.jpg
> The former carbarn on South Blvd. in
> Charlotte now houses a materials storage
> depot for Duke Power - and is adjacent to
> the old Southern Ry line now used by
> Charlotte Trolley. Don't know how many if
> any of the old P&N houses might still
> live. Part of Pinoca Shops now used by CSX
> for car repair - or at least did recently.

> The River Street power plant in Savannah is
> now a substation and on the proposed trolley
> line. The site of the old carbarn is now a
> city bus depot and garage.

> Dave


St. Clair Tunnel Company

tjgaffney@phmuseum.org

A one-time Pacific Electric substation building in Baldwin Park, California, is still standing. It is owned by the city and the adjacent land is used as a (now Metro-Link) park and ride lot. The property is fenced, but the building has had no fix-up work. I go by it every few days.

Elsewhere, some other former PE substation buildings exist. Two of these are one-time Los Angeles Pacific builings; one in Culver City and one hear Hollywood.

Brian Norden



bnorden49@earthlink.net

Here's a link to the historical Hudson & Manhattan powerhouse in Jersey City:
http://www.jerseycityhistory.net/index.html

denmeg_hogan@msn.com

The powerhouse for the C&NW Terminal (that was torn down in the 80's) is still standing and is for sale. It still has the herald in some of the blocks of stone. Also, the freight house (huge) is still standing with the herald in the stone blocks up at the top of the building. This building is used by Pickens-Kane (a moving and storage co.) I'm pretty sure that on the south end of Union Station the Chicago & Alton freight house is still standing and is used by the US post office. You can see the stone cut name Chicago and Alton from the Congress Expy. right after you go under the post office in case anyone is coming here in the future. Thus it is hard to get a photo of it but the others are easy. There are numerous structures still standing here in the Windy City but the C&NW powerhouse is the only powerhouse I know of.

Christopher G. Pitzen

ablemanscurve@hotmail.com

James, we have an Interurban Powerhouse in Marin county, north of San Francisco. It powered the North Shore, later the Northwestern Pacific electric trains. today, just the building remains. The NWP Historical Society looked at it at one time but now I think have decided to set up shop in San Raefel.

The car house for the San Francisco and San Mateo Railroad is at Geneva Ave in San Francisoc. It was built in 1887 and it is today the Geneva Car barn for the MUNI.

Ted


ted_miles@NPS.gov

Former streetcar powerhouses/substations:

http://hometown.aol.com/chictafan/rosgarmp.html

Former carbarns:

http://hometown.aol.com/chictafan/rosctaxh.html

Main page that above links came from. Plenty of interesting other links:

http://hometown.aol.com/chictafan/

Chicago interurbans info. Some pictures of remaining infrastructure:

http://hometown.aol.com/metrafan/interurb.html

Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee interurban site. Very active message board, photos and discussion of remains:

http://www.northshoreline.com/

Chicago elevated rapid transit history. Photos of facilities, some historic ones remain:

http://www.chicago-l.org/index.html



bilburns1313@ameritech.net

Here in East Troy, Wisconsin is a former substation of the Milwaukee Electric interurban line. The Egyptian Revival structure was built in 1910 and served to provide electricity to power trains until 1985. It is currently used as the passenger station and gift shop of the East Troy Electric Railroad Museum.

East Troy Electric Railroad
jftrolley@aol.com

If itty-bitty buildings count, that werenÂ’t original power generators, one still stood in Moravia, Iowa, when I checked in late August, 2000 on my way to the venerable Midwest Old Threshers Reunion (MOTR) in Mt. Pleasant. Part of it served as a station for the Southern Iowa Railway on its route from Centerville to Albia, and in the northern end housed a rotary converter that fed into the overhead to power passenger and freight operations. When I saw it, the building was boarded up, but appeared to be in good condition, thanks to its brick exterior. I do hope it can be preserved, as I enjoyed riding that line many years ago and one of its streetcars (built in 1910) is still operated by the Midwest Electric Railway on the grounds of the MOTR. Maybe someone from that area can fill us in on its present status.