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The Santa Fe’s big shop at San Bernardino, California fell to the wrecker’s ball in 1996, to make way for a new intermodal yard. Though now gone, what a railway museum it might have become!
The San Bernardino shops were a complete facility, capable of any and all heavy repairs. Shown here in 1929, they also serviced locomotives for the Los Angeles & Salt Lake (UP). Steele’s Photo Service - Wade Byers collection.
A Union Pacific "Bull Moose" 2-8-8-0 has just rolled off the table on October 29, 1938, as other Santa Fe and UP power is serviced in the stalls, which had no doors and were unheated. Steele’s Photo Service - Wade Byers collection.
Inside, a cacophony of hissing steam and thumping airpumps mixed with the smell of oil smoke and hot valve oil. Donald Duke - Wade Byers collection.
The backshop cranes were capable of lifting the Santa Fe’s largest locomotives, steam or diesel. Steele’s Photo Service - Wade Byers collection.
The same buildings lasted until 1996, relatively complete. The roundhouse, shown here in 1992, housed a diesel battery shop in later years. It is unclear when the turntable was removed, but at that time, there were at least two identical ones elsewhere that might have replaced it. Wade Byers photo.
Besides providing heat for the nearby depot, the power plant mainly supplied steam for cleaning parts and locomotives, as the shop buildings were not heated. It’s large shop whistle was blown daily right up to the end of operations and was a fixture in the city. Wade Byers photo.
This aerial view shows the roundhouse, a bit of the shops, and 4-8-4 No. 3751 still on open display in the nearby park. Incredibly, the locomotive would run again, but the railway’s mechanical forces were consolidated at Topeka, Kansas, and the shops would be demolished.
Ah, What Might Have Been?
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