THE MEMPHIS BUFFTHE MEMPHIS BUFFVOLUME 35, ISSUE 12 NATIONAL RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 35, ISSUE 12 NATIONAL RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY DECEMBER 2008 DECEMBER 2008

VMV's Paducah Shop VMV's Paducah Shop Frisco's 1925 Memphis Riverfront Cave-in Frisco's 1925 Memphis Riverfront Cave-in

Member Photos Member Photos

Memphis Chapter Officers

President – David Chase dchase@memphisredbirds.comVice President – Bruce SmedleyNational Director – Bill Strong williambstrong@bellsouth.netSecretary – Oliver Doughtie doughtio@bellsouth.netTreasurer – Thomas Doherty TRDoherty@aol.comLibrarian – Mike PendergrassPublication Editor – Tom Parker tscottparker@gmail.com

Last Month’s Meeting

Last month's program was a round table discussion of travel by Amtrak chaired by Bruce Smedley. Tom Parker presented a 30 minute video of a trip from Chicago to Seattle on the Empire Builder in May of 2008. Bill Strong reported on his trip from Chicago Il to Portland, Oregon and return via the California Zephyr to San Francisco, the Coast Starlight to Portland and the Empire Builder back to Chicago in a vintage privately owned Pullman car.

This Month's Meeting

Decembers program will be “Passenger Service In And Around Memphis Before Amtrak”, a slide presentation by Terry Foshee.

BUFF ONLINE: www.buff.illinoiscentral.net User Name:Member Password: Buff (Capital “M” & “B”)

Cover Photo: The highlight of the 2008 Illinois Central Historical Society's Annual Meeting in August was a tour of the VMV Shops in Paducah, KY. Tom Parker Photo

VMV's Paducah Shops from VMV Handout 8/22/08 for ICHS Annual Meeting (T. Parker photos)

HISTORY OF PADUCAH'S

LOCOMOTIVE FACILITIES

Paducah's first shop facility was a wooden engine house and turntable built by the NO&O in 1855 near 11th Street in 1855 between today's Washington and Clark Streets. That facility buned in 1865 and in 1872, soon after the Civil War ended a new roundhouse was built just west of where the old one stood. In 1884 the CO&SW, largely through tireless efforts of Q,Q,Quigley, decided to re-locate its industrial units in Paducah; this $107,000 invest-ment included machine, car, boiler, and blacksmith shops and brass foundry, with track-age and 6-stall roundhouse.

In 1897, shortly after the Illinois Central's purchase of the bankrupt CO&SW’s hold-

ings in the area:.(which in-cluded rail lines serving Padu-cah, along with the hospital and shop facilities), the IC consructeded a new fifteen STALL "Paducah Round-house" – which was enlarged one year later. That facility was expanded again in 1902, as more and more repairs were performed at the cent-rally-located Paducah site.in 1918, despite the onset of WWI and tough economic times, the Illinois Central made what proved to be a wise decision to build anoth-er, totally new 36 stall mech-anical facility at a cost of

An aerial view of the Paducah Shops: “A” Machine Shop (245'X682), “B” Boiler Shop (167X625), “C” Tank Shed (100X625), “D” Blacksmith Shop (85X460), “E” Personnel Building (7200 SQ FT) ,”F” Maintenance Office & Storage (46X140), “G” Power House (95X230), “H” Lift Truck Repair (50X171), “J” Iron Store Warehouse (67X315), “K” Storehouse (67X620), “L” Maintenance Shop (85X247)

Some familiar faces, Ann and Michael Jack and Bill Strong, enroute to Paducah Shops

A locomotive High Voltage Cabinet

$250,000. It was referred to as the Paducah Roundhouse" andd was situated along Ken-tucky Avenue near the previ-ous facility. Much of the IC's motive power was then up-graded at the Paducah Shops. (This 1918 roundhouse was utilized for upgrading, main-tenance and repairs of the Illinois Central's steam engine fleet through the 1950's - until steam's demise.) oon after WWI, with' the IC's locomot-ive repair costs accounting for roughly a tenth of its operat-ing expenses and wanting to improve efficiencies, the com-pany resolved to build an en-tirely new locomotive shop, Official announcement that the Illinois Central Railroad would locate its new shops at Paducah was made on Janu-ary 15, 1925, Ground was broken and construction be-gun on the new buildings on Maroh 12th of that year. Known as the PADUCAH

SHOPS, the new facility was situated adjacent to the exist-ing roundhouse, along Ken-tucky Avenue, between 13th &. 16th Streets.

After two years of construc-tion, the IC finally completed its new Shops and a great cel-ebration was held June 15, 1927. The entire city and Pa-ducah railroad employees erected a bronze bust to honor Charles H. Markham, former' president of the Illinois Cent-

ral Railroad, who, as its Chairman of the Board, furthered the project and was the IC executive given most of the credit for bringing the massive shops to Paducah. The complex was the largest ever erected by the Illinois Central. It represented an in-vestment of several million dollars and expanded the IC's repair plant area to some 110 acres. At that time it was one of the four largest industrial plants in the state. The latest in tools and equip-ment, including electric cranes which could lift an en-tire locomotive twenty feet above the floor increased the efficiency of the IC's repairs. All repair work for the IC previously done by Burnside Shops, Chicago, was trans-

Inside the Machine Shop Building

This is the "High Bay" in the Boiler Shop Building where steam engines were stood on end to weld the fire boxes on re-manufactured engines.

A prime mover being rebuilt

ferred to the Paducah facility, which was capable of building complete locomotives. In fact, twenty (20) heavy, Mountain-type freight engines (2600-Series) were built here in Pa-ducah during World War II at a cost of $2 million each. They were contracted for by the US .Government, primarily for ' handling trains hauling our troops. These were the finest steam engines ever to appear on the IC. During this time, the IC continued to up-grade and improve perform-ance of existing locomotives here at Paducah; the Paducah Shops flourished. By 1956, the Paducah Shops was faking on an more and more diesel repair work and new machinery for diesel re-pair and rebuild was installed in the newer Shop facility. In 1965 the "Paducah Round-house" (built in 1918) was razed.

In 1967 the IC began extens-ive modernization and up-grading of its Paducah Shops, In 1972 the Illinois Central merged with the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, forming the Illinois Central Gulf (ICG). The Pa-ducah Shops were included in the merger/sale, On February 25th, 1986 the Paducah Shops were sold by the ICG to

CG&.T Industries. Subsidi-ary, VMV Enterprises began operation of the shops shortly thereafter. In 2003, VMV En-terprises, Inc., filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and, under court supervision, assets were sold to an affiliate of National Railway Equipment Co., Inc., and the Paducah rebuild facil-ity began to operate as VMV Paducahbilt, an "assumed" name. Most all the buildings con-

structed by the Illinois Cent-ral in 1927 stand today, hous-ing VMV Paducahbuilt's loco-motive and component manu-facturing facility. VMV's Pa-ducah Shops paint, repair, and rebuild E.M.D. locomot-ives and component parts, and totally manufacture "En-viroMotive" locomotives.

The Machine Shop viewed from between the Machine shop and Boiler Shop Buildings

Boilers are few and far between in the Boiler Shop Building these days.

THE BUILDING OF THE "NEW" PADUCAH

SHOPS From The Story of Paducah by Paducah resident Fred G. Newman (Original Printing 1927 by Young Printing Company; Revised Printing 1979 by Image Graphics) "While work was progressing on units at the north end, such as driving piles for the found-ation, laying concrete bases and erecting steel framework, a forlorn hollow extending from Washington to Jones Street was raised to the level of the yards. This stupendous undertaking was started In March, 1926, and completed in 190 working days. It made a remarkable change in the appearance of the place. A total of 625,000 cubic yards of dirt were needed to fill the large ravine, and nothing short of a near-mountain would answer the purpose. Engineers immediately set about removing Coleman's Hill, sixteen miles away and long famed as the highest point in McCracken County, and brought it to the basin at the rate of 235 cars a day. Al-together 44,560 carloads of dirt were hauled to the hollow. "All buildings in the new shops area are set on concrete foundations pillowed with red cedar pilings. In constructing the locomotive shop, [now known as the Machine Shop]

which measures 682 feet in length and 245 feet in width, 3,760 piles were driven into the ground, or 89,770 lineal feet. Twenty-six carloads of creosoted wooden blocks were used in laying the floor. The steel alone in the mammoth structure weighed 2,865 tons, while a total 1,659,000 brick was used. "The locomotive erecting shop has a floor area of 3.9 acres and houses a veritable forest of machinery. There are 181 machines of various dimen-sions, including a device for slotting locomotive frames, which cost $42,000. This unit

also contains twenty-seven en-gine pits and five cranes, the largest having a capacity of 250 tons and costing $57,750. This monster crane spans 95 feet and is capable of carrying the largest locomotives. The clearing limit is 22 feet and six inches. "Other buildings in the layout also make an interesting study in colossal structural work. The boiler shop, harboring four cranes and diverse ma-chines, including a hydraulic flanging machine weighing 280 tons and costing $44,900, required the driving of 1,369 piles and laying of 1,055,000

Paducah Shops in the steam era

brick. Measurements of the storehouse are 622 by 67 feet; the blacksmith shop 460 by 84; and the paint and tank unit 624 by 100 feet. Two chimneys at the powerhouse measured 44 feet in diameter at the base and rose to a great height. Outside craneways ex-tend from Kentucky Avenue to Tennessee Street, bearing two 20-ton cranes which, like the others, are electrically op-erated. Total cost of the build-ings when completed in 1927 was $27,000,000."

Built at VMV Paducah, Genset 3GS21B, CSXT 1302, one of a five unit order for delivery September 2008

Three of these self-contained diesel/generator modules are installed in the 3GS21B. Each "Genset" unit can be swapped out in case of malfunction, thereby reducing locomotive downtime.

Paducah built narrow guage locomotives for export are loaded on flat cars for shipment.

SD9043MAC INRD 9001 leaves Paducah with a brand new paint job

Switch Tracks Damaged in Freakish Cave-in on Memphis River FrontTen Billion Cubic Feet of Ground in Frisco Yards Fall Into Mississippi River on July 25th

Reprinted from September, 1926, Frisco Employees Magazine)

Cracking and rumbling its be-lated warning a freakish cave-in occurred Sunday, July 25, at Memphis, Tennessee, when ten billion cubic feet of ground at the foot of Butler Avenue on the Mississippi bluffs, crumbled downward to a depth of fifty feet.The switch tracks of the Frisco between Butler and Trezevant Street sank with the entire plant and yards of the West Kentucky Coal Company and a lot of equipment of Pease & Dwyer, feed manufacturers, the destruction combining to an approxlmated damage of $250.000. The caved-in land was approx-imately eight hundred square feet, running in width from a narrow strip to one hundred and seventy-five feet. The cave-in completely cut off the Frisco main lead track run-ning north into Frisco river

front trackageDuring the hour after the first rumbles of the approaching calamity, the mass of earth settled to a depth of fifty feet, although not a foot of the earth went into the river itself. For more than a year officials at Memphis had expected something of the sort. Cracks in the ground have been vis-ible for twelve months, but not until a few days before the ca-vein did they become danger-ous. On the day of the cave-in, reports the Memphis Com-mercial-Appeal, J.J O'Neil, su-perintendent of the Frisco ter-minals, became convinced of the impending disaster, and began moving equipment and preparing for the cave-in."Just before noon on the day of the cave-in we took a level and found that the earth had settled .98 of a foot," Superin-tendent O'Neil told reporters.

"I went to lunch and when I returned the little shanty from which I took the level was fifty feet down in the bosom of the earth. But we had started get-ting our equipment out of the way a few days before. We had a similar cave-in four years ago down near the roundhouse and lost a bunch of equipment and I didn't want to take any chances. When we ran the last string of cars out at noon I could see the earth giving way ahead of the engine. When I came back from lunch I found our fears multiplied ten fold." The extent of damage can be learned, partially, from the above picture, which was taken fifteen minutes after the cave-in. The track at the right is the industrial track to the Pease & Dwyer warehouse. It sank with the earth without disturbing the dirt around the ties. A long section of the rail can be seen leaning against the far wall of the bank where it was torn loose and broken from the ties by the force of the collapse. The track at the left which slid down the bank is the main lead track to the Frisco river front trackage. The Frisco equipment on top of the bank was saved, and no cars or lives were lost.

Member Photos

Here are some photos taken by our newest member, Sam Peregoy. Welcome to our group, Sam!

Former Rock Island Bridge across the White River at DeVall's Buff, AR (Background)

The old GM&O mainline in Middleton, TN after the track was removed in March, 2007 at TN State Highway 57.

This is old L&N (NC& StL) mainline (Bruceton, TN to Paducah, KY) running down the middle of the street in Paris, TN.

CABOOSE

Illinois Central 8045 on display on display in downtown Paducah, KY Tom Parker photo

Meeting Schedule

December 8, 2008January 12, 2009Februray 9, 2009

March 9, 2009April 13, 2009May 11, 2009

Meetings are the 2nd Monday of each month in the White Station Branch

Library from 7-9 pm.5094 Poplar Avenue

Memphis, TN (in front of Clark Tower)

Contact the EditorTom Parker

3012 Wood Thrush DriveMemphis, TN 38134

tscottparker@gmail.com

THE MEMPHIS BUFF welcomes contributions for publication. Copyrighted materials must contain the source. Original documents and photos are preferred for clarity. Enclose a SASE for the return of your materials. Articles sent via the Internet should be in Microsoft Word format. orthern Photos should be JPEG files @ 72 dpi and at least 800x600 size. Consideration for a cover photo would require a much higher resolution. THE MEMPHIS BUFF is a not-for-profit publication for the Memphis Chapter of the NRHS. All credited photos herein are copyright by the photographer and may not be reused without permission.