Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
I'm thinking some of the diesel electrics were a little wider than the steam engines they were originally designed for? I don't have data, but it's just my impression. At least as the walls fanned out towards the back, there would be more room to actually work around them.
I have never actually been in a roundhouse - were they only used for basic maintenance or was there another purpose for them? I've seen some striking photos of huge steam locomotives being hoisted (see pic below) by some type of crane, but I assume that would have been in the larger repair shops, as the roundhouses would not be large (or tall) enough to house such devices.
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Thanks, Mark. Some more great photos there. While I was in the old Halifax roundhouse in the 70s, I don't remember a lot of activity going on at the time. The one roundhouse I've been in where steam locomotives were being serviced was in Scranton PA, site of the
Steamtown National Historic Site, a place that is worth a visit if you are in that vicinity. They maintain several big steam locomotives there.
My understanding is that roundhouses were mostly used for routine servicing to keep locomotives on the road. Running steam engines was labour-intensive and they needed a lot of maintenance before and after every trip: lubrication, brakes shoes, loose bolts, steam and water leaks and so on. Heavy repairs (and that meant almost complete disassembly and rebuild) came at regular intervals. I think that interval varied based on type of service, but was somewhere in the range of every 100,000 miles. Those heavy repairs would have been done in major engine shops, which in this region for CN meant sending the locos to Moncton. (CN's biggest shops were in Stratford ON, which is where that photo you posted of the locomotive on the crane was taken.) Dominion Atlantic locos would, I believe, go to the CPR shops in Montreal.
While roundhouses remained in service in many places after diesel locomotives replaced steam, I think they were victims of the increased reliability of diesels. Diesel locomotives travel much further between servicing and require less lubrication, fuel and water. More of their basic repairs can be done outside and they need to be stored less. (One source says diesels have an availability rate of 90%, compared to 65% for steam.)
Some
good information here about roundhouses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
The Kentville roundhouse case is definitely a loss. It seems as if there were little to no efforts by town council to look at alternatives to tearing it down. Very short-sighted in my view - and obviously no respect for history. The worst of it is, that council members are voted in by the public based on what little knowledge we may have of them, with no requirements for the job other than what amounts to a popularity contest... but they can have long-lasting negative effects on their region. Then they are voted out in a few years and go on with their lives, even if they had wrecked havoc on their town/city while they were in power.
Regardless (rant over), here are a couple of websites with interesting info/photos of the Kentville Roundhouse. Luckily, there were some individuals who took it upon themselves to document it before it was demolished.
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Gary Ness has done so much to preserve the history of the DAR, most recently in
an excellent book. Most people in the Annapolis Valley have no understanding of how much of the Valley's development depended on the DAR. Both the growth of the agricultural sector and the tourism sector in the early to mid-20th century were tied to the railway, which is why the loss of the Kentville roundhouse and station is such as loss, IMO.
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