Check it out, this was way back when the brick of the roundhouse was still a light cream colored before the pollution and elements turned it a grayish-black (Cream City Brick Company?). Would be curious what color the trim was painted. Note the skylights on the rectangular buildings to let in the sun light.
One of the very first issues of Trains that I bought 1973? had a full centerspread of the entire MILW complex in Milwaukee. I finally saw it many years later after some of it had been razed.
TMER&T’s 1952 Transit Guide shows Mt. Vernon Ave. running east/west parallel to and one block south of W. St. Paul Ave. (i.e., two blocks south of W. Michigan St.), the easternmost endpoint being at N. 28th St. From there it runs west ending temporarily at N. 39th St. It resumes going west at N. 41st St. but only for one and one-half blocks where it appears to be cut off completely by the northward turn of the Menomonee River and valley.
Thats only about 50% in the frame of the picture. They actually had two roundhouses not sure if they were both fully circular when built but when I first saw the shops complex only 50% of each former roundhouse was still standing, the rest was razed but the tracks still radiated out for the razed stalls in most cases. The rectangular buildings were still mostly the old brick but some had been replaced by the new steel construction. Milwaukee manufactured everything there. Wheelsets, Frieight Cars, Passenger Cars, Locomotives, track panels, creosote ties (they experimented with different types of wood other than oak), Steel from ore. They had a carpentry shop as well and it’s one reason why you see the use of wood trim inside their passenger cars…it was a holdover from the days when both the boxcars and passenger cars were made of wood.
They had so many dead locomotives on hand by the shops, which they would slowly strip down for parts. They literally ran the locomotives until they failed mechanically, sometimes old age other times just sheer negligence. Most of the FP45’s in my opinion died an early death because of lack of maintence (negligence). Five bought new 12/1968 all dead and scrapped by 1984. Some were dead as early as 1980 (compare that with their longevity on Santa Fe).