I have recently heard the good news the the former Lehigh Valley (ex Beaver Meadow) locomotive shop in Weatherly, PA has been saved by the local Rotary for conversion into public space (library, meeting rooms, etc) http://www.weatherlypa.gov/special_events.htm

Built in the late 1860s along the Beaver Meadow's 1835 ROW, this shop along with the nearby Lehigh & Mahanoy Railroad Shop in Delano, had *arguably* the most talented master mechanics in the country. Both companies would up as part of the Lehigh Valley, but not before enaging in developments that would evenutally lead to Delano producing the world's first 2-8-0.

It is speculated Weatherly had a few "world's first's" too. What is not speculative is the fact that this complex has stood the test of time and now is with us one of the oldest, if not the oldest, locomotive erecting facilities still standing.

Having just gone to witness the disastrous partial demolition of the 1872 D&H shops in Green Island, NY (and the sad satate of the for-sale 1870 depot), this news comes at the right time.

With all due respect to the Boston's road plus the B&O, the C&A and the D&H's 1829-1831 period, one could make a good argument that the gravity road, steam road and canal system of the middle anthracite field was America's first successful implelentation of steam-powered railroading in a heavy industrial setting.

The Beaver Meadow was a pioneer American railroading, and to have its shops preserved is quite an important development.

Rob Davis

Shop is at lower left center, Preserved depot is at top center. Beaver Meadow 1835 ROW still in use by NS.

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=18&X=2151&Y=22661&W=1&qs=%7cweatherly%7cPA%7c

Great news!
glad to see this shop being saved!

just for the record, the world's first 2-8-0 road engine, the "Consolidation", (after which the entire 2-8-0 class is named)
wasnt built at Delano or Weatherly.
it was built by Baldwin, in 1866.
It was however designed by Alexander Mitchell, master mechanic of the Lehigh and Mahoney.

At first, Baldwin didnt want to built it!
they thought it was too big, too unusual, too unorthodox...too extreme.
but finally they agreed to build it, and it was hugely sucessfull!
the 2-8-0 went on to be perhaps the most sucessful wheel arrangemtnt of all time..
(either the 2-8-0 or the 4-4-0 was the most populat wheel arrangent ever..in terms of total locomotive built..anyone know which is first place??
im not sure..)

It was named "Consolidation" in honor of the consolidation of two railroads, the Lehigh & Mahoney and the Lehigh Valley.
(although in reality the L&M was simply absorbed into the larger LV system.)
The engine arrived lettered for the L&M, although technically it was a LV engine by the time it was delievered.

So the Lehigh Valley is credited as inventing the Consolidation type.




Scot

From Railfan.net

http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?board=LV;action=display;num=1119187367

Scott,

So noted, Mitchell was the master mechanic at Delano, but I was indeed mistaken on where "Consolidation" was built.

In your post, you note the Lehigh & Mahoney, which I have seen a number of printed materials use even though the name of the line was the Lehigh & Mahanoy.

When the LV "consolidated" the L&M, the Beaver Meadow and other early anthracite lines around Hazelton they became part of the Mahanoy & Hazelton Divison, which is why - in case any curious riders of the Lehigh Gorge trains ask - where the mainline let met the branch at Penn Haven became known as M&H Junction.

Another note about the Beaver Meadow line next ot the old shops. The hill there is the reason the LV bought SW8's with dynamic brakes.

This is also the east end of the same division made famous int he 1950's for picking up ore trains off the PRR via Shamokin.

Rob

Great news and great photos. These buldings remind me that back in the 1980's in Wilmington we lost the former backshops of the Wilmington and Northern which were very built in 1883. They were torn down simply to make way for a packing lot for some local industries. The industries were in decline anyway and the lot was never really needed.

From: http://www.lafayette.edu/news.php/view/8081/

Technology Clinic Developing Ideas for Reuse of Former Locomotive Factory

Six students collaborate on project involving 300,000-square-foot facility

EASTON, Pa.(www.lafayette.edu), December 13, 2005 — Six Technology Clinic students will soon make a mid-year presentation to clients on their proposals for renovation and use of an abandoned 300,000-square-foot building in northeastern Pennsylvania that has served as a locomotive factory, railroad maintenance facility, and steel mill.

The group is working on behalf of the Rotary Club and borough of Weatherly, Pa., to analyze potential use of the structure and its auxiliary buildings and create a report and graphic presentation that will be used to apply for federal and state funding and for potential commercial investors.

It is a project of great importance for the town of 2,600, which has seen its job base shrink from 3,000 to 150 since 1989.

Technology Clinic is a hands-on course founded in 1986 that brings together students from different majors for two semesters to solve the real-world problems of a business, non-profit organization, or government body. The diverse disciplines represented in the class enables it to apply different perspectives and arrive at more comprehensive and creative solutions. The group’s research addresses the social, technological, and economic issues involved with the client’s problem.

Students in the course are biology major Jillian Carinci ’08 (Wilmington, Del.); Trustee Scholar Molly McDonald ’06, a double major in English and history; mechanical engineering major Varun Mehta ’06; Chris Rosa ’07 (West Islip, N.Y.), , a double major in government & law and economics & business; Trustee Scholar Lori Weaver ’06 (White Haven, Pa.), a double major in history and government & law; and Sandamali Wijeratne ’06 (Mount Lavinia, Sri Lanka), a double major in international affairs and English. Guiding the students as project facilitators are Technology Clinic program director Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and sociology, and architect Will Dohe.

The students have conducted multiple visits to Weatherly for site work and to meet with the borough manager and Rotary Board. They toured neighboring towns to gain a broad context of the social, economic, and historical role the building played in the region.

For Rosa, the course is an exciting new experience, and daunting.

“[Students] work with partners in class, but this is my first time working on a project of this scale. There are so many aspects to it. It’s a multi-million dollar project. It’s mind-numbing sometimes when you come home from meetings and say to yourself “wow, there’s just so much to do,’” he says.

Bauer divides the class into teams. One group is analyzing the social aspects of the town, reporting on various demographic factors, including age breakdown, types of jobs held by the residents, whether they were born in or moved to Weatherly, household income, and commercial use.

Another team is examining the integrity of the structure, including the walls, trusses, and roof, and looking at future-use considerations.

Rosa is working with Dohe on the architectural aspects and examining the internal and external vistas the site offers, “looking at the whole site and views of it from inside and outside. We have to understand the layout of the site and the [accompanying] buildings, the spatial relations inside, and look at needs for parking and access to the site,” he explains.

He has taken many photographs of the site and mapped it using computer software. He joins other class members in studying architecture and large-scale site design reference books and using on-line resources. One student attended a three-day international seminar on re-use of public spaces.

A number of uses are being considered, reports Bauer, including restoration of the railroad aspect of the building, a library, an area for youth activities and local clubs, and a theater. To tap into the considerable state money available, the students have to tailor their ideas to suit grant requirements.

“Yet [we can’t be] so focused that we just go after the grant and don’t also attract other potential investors,” says Bauer. “It’s one thing to get a building looking like a library or a museum or business incubator space; it’s another thing to make it sustainable through time.”

Figuring out the potential uses of the building within the parameters of location, population, and economy is precisely the broad-based challenge Bauer wants to present in Technology Clinic, and why the course is composed of students from across the academic spectrum.

“Students from different majors have different views and bring different perspectives,” he says. “If everybody is seeing something different, we’re more likely to bring in all the components that are useful for a good solution than if everybody is looking at the problem from a civil engineering standpoint, or everybody is looking as a social scientist. The fact that people see the problem in such diverse terms may make it so that you come up with a solution that is qualitatively new, or at least one that attends to a wider variety of needs and constituencies.”

Bauer wants to instill in his students an appreciation for looking at issues from a wider range of views.

“One impression that students often have is that the discipline they have been trained in has a kind of monopoly on truth and is the right way to think, and that those who think in other ways are somehow misguided or sloppy thinkers. So I hope they’ll get a respect for what other people are learning and doing,” he says. “I hope they learn that they can think creatively in a field they weren’t trained in.”

“Another thing is that when students get out in the real world, they have to work with people who don’t necessarily think the way they were trained. So they will have better skills in dealing with people,’ Bauer adds.

Rosa sees the broad lessons of the course.

“When working on problems in class, there usually is an answer you are heading toward. But in doing this project, there isn’t always a single answer – it’s not ‘we have this building and this is what needs to be done with it.’ There are so many intricacies and complexities in a real-world problem like this,” he says.

“Professor Bauer doesn’t come in and say ‘this is what I need you to do.’ He opens it up for discussion about what has to be done. [This course] is a great learning experience in how things get done, how you group together, how you do things individually, how you communicate. You can feel how the whole group works together; it’s very dynamic,” says Rosa.

Selection for Tech Clinic is very competitive. Students must be recommended by faculty or administration. Bauer and a co-facilitator interview 15-30 students for the half-dozen slots and put together a class comprised of students from the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and engineering.

While other schools have real-world, problem-solving classes, Lafayette’s course emphasizes the interdisciplinary aspect.

“This fits well with the sort of school we are,” says Bauer.

Today, another Technology Clinic class is giving a presentation on the walking DVD tour it developed to make the history of area technology come alive at Hugh Moore Park in Easton through images, graphics, narrative, and sound.

Recommendations from a Technology Clinic that concluded last spring are at the heart of a plan to improve the Easton and Phillipsburg riverfront area and invigorate the business climate using more than $6 million in grants from the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.

Other recent Technology Clinic projects have resulted in recommendations for improving traffic on Cattell Street and ideas for developing the North 3rd Street corridor at the foot of College Hill in Easton, an automobile tour on CD to boost tourism and local awareness of historical assets in Nazareth and its surrounding rural municipalities, a self-guided tour and other enhancements at Bachmann Publick House in downtown Easton, and improvements in the experiences of patients at the offices of doctors within Lehigh Valley Hospital Physicians Group.

Other projects in recent years have included a report on creating environmentally friendly hotels, which the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection posted on its web site; an interactive web site for the National Canal Museum in downtown Easton; a drunk-driving simulator at Easton’s Weller Center; recommendations for proposed uses of Bachmann Publick House; suggestions to improve fundraising for ProJeCt for People (formerly ProJeCt of Easton); recommendations on a learning center at the National Canal Museum; and a proposal for development in the Slate Belt.

Older projects have included:

Promoting the Borough of Roseto, Pennsylvania
Reviving Weatherly, Pennsylvania
Promoting innovation in plant design for Lockwood Greene Engineering and Air Products
Managing work and life at Merck & Co.
Improving the organization of residence halls at Lafayette
New applications for SERVAC vacuum excavation technology for Filtration Engineering and the Wilkra Company
Measuring and improving patient satisfaction for Lehigh Valley Hospital Physicians Group

No argument, it is a most historic locomotive shop.

This looks like a great save. Additionally, it offers a different model from that which we on this web site generally use (i.e. put old trains in it, make it a railroad museum) towards the concept of adaptive re-use. This site will apparently become a library and conference center.

While these buildings are most significant for the railroad activities that took place here, they are also significant as work sites, as employment centers, and simply as enclosed space. While the world has moved past these buildings as a site for railroad activities, they remain as a site for public activities.

By surviving they offer a chance for us to remember and honor their heritage, in this case railroad history, while continuing to serve the community. This is a model suggested by the Association for State and Local History for preserved houses. An edit oral on this issue, as it relates to historic houses can be found at: http://www.aaslh.org/images/hhouseart.pdf

We can apply the lessons learned at this site, along with the suggestions from the editorial, when choosing what and how to save railroad artifacts, be they buildings or car bodies.

I found similiar examples of clever adaptive reuse in the Dallas, Texas area. Four of Dallas' steam pumping steam pumping stations still remain; of which two have been adaptively reused - one is now the operations center for Dallas Water, the other is a Center for the Performing arts.

The third, and maybe the fourth are being used as storage buildings by the waterworks they are a part of. White Rock Pump Station is still intact complete with smokestack and a steam powered compressor on display outside; the Turtle Creek Pump Station lost it's smokestack and one corner of the building during an expansion of Harry Hinds Blvd. Pictures of all four, plus a the remains of a c.1892 pumphouse and a steam pumping station in Houston that dates from 1879, and has been converted to a 200,000-gallon shark tank for the Houston Aquarium are here.

Of course, it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing deal. I recall one station has been made partly a museum with trains, partly a mall. I am also watching with interest the Chestnut Hill Waterworks development in Boston; plans are to preserve the steam pumps in the High Service building while adaptively reusing the rest of the station as condos.

Like you said; the ideal is to preserve the building intact in it's original form; but when that is not possible a well done adaptive reuse proposal that retains the structure's original appearance is the next best thing. It is especially nice when a portion of the building (even if only a corner in the lobby) is set aside as a museum.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

Along similar lines, the Martinsburg, WV Roundhouse Project, appears to be moving forward. http://www.gdaaia.com/roundhouse.htm
http://www.samlindsey.com/TrainExcurs/Martinsburg.asp

Photos: Sam Lindsey