The Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, later the western part of the Erie Railroad, built its car shops in Kent, Ohio in 1867. These shops built passenger and freight cars until about 1930; in the early years some locomotives were built there, too. For a few decades, more than half the working men in Kent were employed there.
Although most of the cut ashlar buildings were destroyed by arson in 1930, a significant part of them remained and has been used as a factory ever since. Built originally for 6’ gauge, the old-fashioned doors make it easy to see in the mind’s eye the wide-stacked, wood-burning American-type locomotives and wooden cars of railroading’s early days.
The Kent Historical Society is proud of the city’s heritage as a railroad town; a few years ago it held a huge meeting and open house at the Car Shops, as they still are called, and many people turned out to tour them and recall the days when their ancestors worked there.
Though much reduced, AT&SF used the Topeka shops still used by BNSF to maintain the business car fleet. SP used Sacramento, site of the California State RR Museum.
Thanks for the information. About 1985 or so, I had a BN Material Department truck run through the Twin Cities. By that time Dale Street was the home of the wrecking crew and Material Department. X-GN Bridal Veil repaired business cars. I remember the “Glacier View” on supports while the fellows converted it from steam heat to HEP.
So when I am walking around a old railroad yard what kind of buildings and equipement would I be looking for that would have been used for passenger cars? I can only think of Metro North ex NYC Croton Harmon which might be the oldest car shops around. Then there would have been Cedar Hill Yard in New Haven CT.
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I believe the New Haven’s car shops were at Readville, just south of Boston, where the Shawmut (?) branch from South Station rejoins the main line through Back Bay and also continues as the secondary main that used to go to Willamantic and through Hartford to Waterbury but now just goes as a suburban branch to Blackstone. For mu cars, the shops were at Van Ness, the Bronx, same locatoin as for electric locomotives.
Ceder Hill may have had freight-car shops, but the main one was also at Readville.
You are correct that the GN had shops in Waite Park, MN, but they were for freight cars only. A retired GN-BN-BNSF conductor and member of the GNRHS said that the GN’s passenger car shops were at GN Mississippi Street. I should add that the Waite Park shops built box cars for both the GN and SPS. Another oddity was that the NP Brainerd, MN shops built two batches of cabooses for the SPS, add ons to two NP orders. Robert Del Grosso’s BN caboose can give you information on those orders and numbers. The GN’s Waite Park shop also built some cabooses for the GN.
Steam Plants would have been nessary to keep cars warm overnight in Carshops. The Erie would have had a Steam Plant in Youngstown Ohio for its Cleveland-Youngstown Commuter run.
