Yes, I too have never seen a roundhouse moved. How do you disassemble a brick roundhouse and reassemble it elsewhere?

Would building a copy from scratch be about as cost effective? I suppose you could move certain big pieces or expensive timbers that may be costly to replicate.

The Roundhouse at the Henry Ford Greenfield Village was moved, as was the Smiths Creek Depot.

When first disassembled I understand the bricks were numbered and stacked in sorted piles, and all the metal parts were marked and sorted. However it has been decades and at least one or two moves since then, plus pilferage, so it will be a complex rebuild. Not unlike the reconstruction of the Chart House at the Vina Monastery has been--that building was disassembled in Europe by Hearst, shipped here, put in a field in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and sat for MANY decades during which stuff was damaged/stolen, but the Monastery has re-assembled it, although they had to make new parts to do it. A Brick roundhouse should be "a piece of cake" by comparison.

In all honesty, the building will be more of a reconstruction using as many original components as possible. Historic brick buildings do not fare well in the seismically active Bay Area, which is of course, why the building was condemned in the first place after the Loma Prieta Earthquake. The reconstruction will use steel reinforced concrete masonry units to build the structural exterior walls, which will then be faced inside and out with the original bricks. Other salvageable components (viable heavy timbers, cast iron lintels, roof truss components, etc) will be used wherever possible.

Unfortunately, many of these materials have deteriorated since the building was deconstructed in the 90s, but they will be able to provide patterns for new pieces. I do not believe the documentation allows for each brick to go back in its original location, but it will still be made of the same railroad roundhouse bricks from 1899.

I am not sure where this puts us on the spectrum of the Dept of Interior's guidelines, but we are committed to making the reconstruction as accurate as possible while satisfying contemporary safety requirements.

One other mildly vexing detail is that 2479 will not completely fit within a stall. The roundhouse builders of 1899 did not anticipate the 4-6-2 locomotives of the 1920s, so the tender will stick out the stall entrance.

Is an organization forever held prisoner to the intentions of their founders, even as times, circumstances, focuses change?

This might be less of a problem than it seems. You put the tank engines and smaller steamers in the roundhouse which hopefully frees up space at Brightside to build an IRM-style barn to get the bigger pieces under cover.

Another idea comes to mind, but it might not work if the idea is to maintain the historic "look" of the roundhouse. Could you build a tasteful addition to get 2479 completely under cover?

I don't recall PLA ever getting away from steam preservation. Sure they restore and operate diesels but they have plenty of steam locomotives including two former SP examples, one of which being 2479. Furthermore, they have two popular "Timber Titans" running on fantrips, most recently in May 2021.

The reconstruction will by necessity need to meet modern seismic design requirements; there are proven methods to do this which if performed well will result in a structure difficult to distinguish from the original. I would expect the effort would target a more modern date to replicate when the building had been "modernized" than the original 19th century construction.

There are many details to take into account; the brick construction, for instance, in inexperienced hands is not "a piece of cake". The firing methods for manufacturing brick at the time resulted in bricks of varying hardness; these were sorted and the harder and best appearing used on the outside to resist weather and for best appearance. The softer and irregular were used inside the multi-wythe walls and there were methods to tie all this together as the walls went up, all of which will need at least surface duplication. The original mortar used will require reformulation; modern mortars are routinely designed to be much harder. Then there are the original aesthetic features included.

So the first step will be a thorough documentation of the original building as constructed and modified, followed by designing the modifications to retain the original appearance but meet modern requirements. Included will of course be a thorough inventory of just what materials have survived and can be used again.

But all of this is regularly done in the construction industry and the specialized professionals to do it are available. A bigger issue will be the budget and just how much it will cost to do it all. The closer you want to approach the original, the higher the cost.

Not unlike the issues of "restoring" a piece of equipment you intend to operate and weighing against just building a new reproduction.

Timothy, with masonry construction experience.

About six years ago, I recall being told that PLA had desires to install an engine house and exhibits at the wye at the Niles, CA end of its line.

Proposed Niles layout from PLA’s Master Plan created twenty years ago.

The roundhouse was not only featured in the PLA/NCRy's Master Plan; the City of Fremont's Niles Concept Plan from 2001 embraced the roundhouse as well.

These plans also suggested that use of the SP Niles Depot and access across what are now the UPRR tracks would be central to connecting the NCRy's trains to the town of Niles. Unfortunately, there is still no way to cross the UP at this location, and the depot was relocated to the newish Niles Town Center to face the town, not the railroad. As a result, the full benefit of the railroad's presence is not available to the local merchants and the NCRy has had to provide parking on its side of the tracks. Resolving this is another long-term issue that the railroad needs to address.

What is the status of the turntable? Has it been removed from the pit? Can anyone report if it has a builder's plate which shows who built it and when?

I just found that the turntable and dismantled roundhouse had been stored at the the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds after the group got them in 1994.

The turntable has been sitting at the county fairgrounds since it’s removal in October 2000. Though the builders plate was removed YEARS ago before delivery to the fairgrounds, I have a picture somewhere. The bridge was built by American Bridge Company for use in Tucson, Arizona - oft hand I forget the date. In the late 1930’s, it was moved to San Jose.

FYI, it is identical to the table outside the state railroad museum in Sacramento. When CSRM rebuilt their table about a decade ago, they spent a day crawling around ours at the fairgrounds.