Steam & Excursion > A Full Enginehouse Means The Start Of Another Busy Day!

One fine morning in 1948 found the enginehouse for the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railroad full of that roads steam power.  SD&AE #1 was just leaving the shop as another of the fleet of steam locomotives was building steam for her turn out on the line.

Inside the modern tilt-up concrete structure the shop crews are already busy on the repairs that are needed to keep the rest of the fleet in service on this still all-steam line.

Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/20 01:58 by LoggerHogger.

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Wow.  Never seen a photo of this facility before.

Where was it located?

Thanks for sharing this, Martin!

Z

My Guess it was a form and pour concrete building. But according to Google Tilt ups building concept was created in 1905.  who would have guessed. I did not, that's why i looked it up. 

Thanks Martin for getting my brain woken up today. . 

https://www.bing.com/search?q=The%20first%20tilt%20up%20concrete%20building%20what%20year.&form=SWAUA2

My guess would be form and pour too. There was a lot of that type construction in California from about 1906 through World War II.
It was touted as being "fireproof" and resisted earthquakes pretty well too. Two things we had a lot of in California even back then!

The Santa Maria Valley RR built a very similar tilt-up concrete engine house in 1925.

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34877664/engine-house-built-for-smvrr/

Martin

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The SD&A facility was built in 1917.

Located south of downtown, it replaced a one track shed and it too was replaced by a one(?) track shed.

Charlie
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/20 10:20 by cewherry.

That's amazing the SD&AE had that much activity at one time to demand that size of shop. How many trains were they running over the mountains each way per day during that era?

I had no idea anything like that existed as I only saw their operations just at the very end. Thanks for sharing.

One clue that a structure was not a tilt up would likely be distinctive lines in the finished work from wood forms built on site for pouring. Even 4x8 sheets of plywood would leave telltales. At least from the photo, the concrete appears very smooth.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/20 14:06 by wabash2800.