I was driving the other day for my job when I crossed some tracks in Oklahoma and saw an old concrete coaling tower. I also did some searches of photos and found more located in various areas of the country. Why are these still in place. Obviously the railroads have no use for them. Are they too expensive to tear down?
Thanks in advance.
you hit the nail on the head. there is so much rebar embedded in them that demolition is a major project. not to mention disruption to railroad operations during the time it takes to get one down and clean up the site.
grizlump
Many coaling towers were also sand towers. Even though diesels don’t burn coal, they still use sand. If there is already a suitable structure in place, management would probably choose to keep it in operation rather than set up a completely new facility.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - when coaling stations still dispensed coal)
There were still several concrete coaling towers along the Southern Pacific Sunset Route through Arizona until the late 1990’s, when they were finally demolished.
Cost and the difficulty of tearing down a structure with tons of rebar in it was the main reason they lasted so long.
I don’t know of a single instance where an old coaling tower was retained for use in sanding locomotives – especially not out on the mainline where the coaling towers were located (Mescal, Benson, Dragoon, Willcox, Bowie) which are no longer crew change or service stops.
In a couple of instances the demolition wound up in court because there were homeless people living in the towers and the SP had to get eviction notices and call in the local law enforcement to remove them.
Here’s one, although it’s not on the mainline. An over-all view of the former coaling tower of the TH&B, near their Chatham St. roundhouse, in Hamilton, Ontario:
And a closer shot of a loco being sanded:
The tower and roundhouse are now gone, and the railroad itself is now part of CPRail.
Wayne
The railroads aren’t the only one’s not interested in the expense of tearing them down. There is an intact coaling tower in Sardis, Georgia on what used to be the Savannah & Atlanta Rwy mainline. There haven’t been tracks anywere near there since the S&A merged with the Central of Georgia decades ago. Most of the appliances are still in place on the giant tower and the coaling chute is extended waiting for a steamer that will never come. The nearby S&A depot is now the city hall. The location of the old roadbed is difficult to determine except to the railfan eye. Oh yes, this is not out in the boonies, but in the center of the little town with various business activity around it. The grass growing around the tower is tended to and the area is neat.
Georgia Observer
FWIW, coaling towers are still standing on the Union Pacific from the C&NW days at Dekalb and Nelson, Illinois and at Clyman Junction, Wisconsin. I seem to recall there is one in the middle of a field on the long-abandoned Ridgerunner line near Lancaster, Wisconsin, as well.
As mentioned, these things would be expensive to tear down. Since they aren’t hurting anything, they will likely be around to the end of time.
John Timm
I watched some workers demo’ing one once. They’d bash it with the wrecking ball, then cut the re-bar with a torch. Repeat as necessary. Real slow work.
Ed
There’s a huge coaling tower still standing in the CSX yard on the east side of cleveland Oh. R. Staller
CSX still uses the coaling tower in Newport News, VA for sanding locomotives.
Yepper. This is the Collinwood coaling tower just east of Cleveland:
Someone told me that this was so well constructed that - even IF the RRs wanted to bring it down - it would take so much dynamite that all the windows in a 2 mile radius would be shattered.
Supposedly CSX tried to pull it down one time with some cables and locomotives. Well…the cables ended up breaking…and some of the locomotives ended up getting damaged.
To this day the coaling tower still graces the skies of Collinwood. I think it makes a nice tribute to eras gone by. [:)]
Tom
Amtrak still has the ex-PRR coaling tower standing near the south end of the Wilmington (DE) Maintenance Facility. It can be seen from the Northeast Corridor. Maybe they could rent out the top of it to a cell phone company.
Once ya figure out how to cut some windows into that EXCEPTIONALLY STURDY bad boy, there’s a real opportunity for some condos here. You’re going to have to epoxy some decks on the outside, too. And hey, there’s even a penthouse.
Around here, there’s lots of talk about mixed use where there’s new housing right next to the new commuter tracks; so the fact that there’s a railyard “underneath” shouldn’t be a problem. Maybe even an asset. Especially to folks like us.
I smell money here, guys!
Ed
Or how about long-term document storage?
I had a conversation a while back with a retired Norfolk Southern employee who told me in many cases they left coaling towers in place for several reasons. A: the obvious expense involved and the track downtime means loss of revenue as many of the tracks are still in use and B: according to this gentlemen who worked in track maintenance for some 40 years now a days you can’t just knock something down, there are permits involved and environmental issues which means more money. So if the structure is still sound which “most of them would survive a direct hit from a bomb” it’s easier and cheaper to just leave it alone and in some cases where the tracks aren’t in use any longer just put a fence around it.
The Coal Tower on the Nevada Northern Ry, is still standing in Ely, NV. It is no longer in use, even though they still operate coal fired steam locomotives. I would imagine that the cost is the biggest reason it has survived, after the railroad dieseliized, now being a Museum, the historical signifigance also contributes to it’s being left in place.
Modern coaling on the Neveada Northern.
Doug
Interesting subject.
The DeKalb Illinois towere can be seen on Google. Looked at DeKalb and the tower can be seen from the air above the tracks and from 216 Dodge Ave past the housed.
CZ
Simple equation which explains why so many concrete coaling towers survive, while wooden and metal ones have vanished:
If the cost of demolishing a structure exceeds the value of its salvageable components plus any tax savings that might result, and the land is not needed for other purposes, the structure will remain standing. Exceptions occur when the structure is in danger of collapse or has become a, “Homeless hotel.”
Used concrete and rebar are not high-value commodities, but a structure built with them will probably last as long as a Roman aqueduct. I expect that some of those old concrete coaling stations will be standing long after anyone reading this post today, isn’t.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with one steel coaling tower)
Not entirely on topic … but the old water tank for the Galesburg & Great Eastern Railroad (Illinois short line that connected with the CB&Q at Wataga IL) still stands, more or less intact, in heavy brush and weeds.
Track was pulled up around 1960 and steam had stopped running years before then. The strangest thing is, any number of guys have found it once and then swear they can never find it again. It is the Brigadoon of railroad artifacts.
Dave Nelson
The tall cement smokestack of the Cowell (Concord, CA) cement plant remained standing for over 60 years after it closed. Later, a single-family development arose at the former plant site. The homeowners association had the smokestack torn down last year because that was much cheaper than to repair its deterioration.
Originally, a narrow-gauge railroad transported limestone from a nearby quarry. Later, this was done by truck. The cement plant owner also had a standard-gauge common carrier interchanging with the Santa Fe, Sacramento Northern and Southern Pacific railroads, with a pair of 0-6-0 steam locomotives pulling the mixed passenger/freight trains. Most of the standard-gauge main track continued in use for decades on the Navy’s behalf, but it is now idle and undoubtedly will be removed after politicians decide what they will do with the deactivated ammunitions depot.
Mark