North Main Street is a National Register District, and the buildings house a bunch of businesses that cater to the tourist crowd that comes from around the world to see the hometown of Mark Twain. The houses are humble right… Continue Reading
Oelwein still bustles because of a heavy railroad presence, and its location at the intersection of two highways. Its downtown is perhaps a bit smaller than others, as there are extensive suburban-style businesses located over on Highway 150. Still, there… Continue Reading
Someone out there must know what the story is behind this awesome geodesic dome. It fixes railcars, and that is all we could find out.
I went and visited the roundhouse on North Hall Street; there is very little left, but there is clear evidence of such a structure existing up this way.
Finally, after weeks of waiting for the weather to break, I made it out to the only extant ruins of a locomotive roundhouse left in the City of St. Louis. It is weed choked, and even in the winter much… Continue Reading
I also determined that there was a large brick roundhouse right in the middle of the Mill Creek Valley just east of Compton Ave. The two Sanborn maps show the whole complex; for a sense of place, the little wood… Continue Reading
All throughout St. Louis locomotives needed somewhere to park, and the roundhouse, a type of structure almost entirely vanished from the region (except in East St. Louis, which you can see here and here) provided the much-needed space to store… Continue Reading
I tend to think of ruins as static beings, immutable and staying the same for decades. This obviously is far from the truth; abandoned buildings are in a constant state of kinetic change, as a recent visit to the roundhouse… Continue Reading
Update: A portion of the roof on the right side of the roundhouse collapsed a year later. Nestled between the interstate and some railroad tracks, an old locomotive roundhouse sits in splendid isolation, hidden from the highway and the rest… Continue Reading
Ever since I was five or six years old, living far from here, I have been fascinated by trains; I think every man in America at some point in his life is inspired by locomotives and their power. I had… Continue Reading