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| Tom Pavluvcik uploaded a University of South Florida Special Collections photo The SAL's Gary shops in 1940 Aerial view looking south in about 1940 shows the Gary shops of the Seaboard Air Line Railway, including the roundhouse. The shops were originally developed by the Tampa Northern Railroad then absorbed into the SAL after the takeover in 1912. The location is at the south end of Tampa's 30th street, not far from the shore of McKay Bay
Gary shops were closed literally overnight after the ACL/SAL merger in 1967. I think the entire complex was demolished by 1974, maybe a little earlier. I have an aerial that shows everything including the roundhouse still standing in 1969. There was a spur to the old City of Tampa incinerator, that was removed when the incenerator was redesigned in the 80's. Just North of where the shops were is now the CSX transflo facility. The only trackage still in use is the track from what was the main line (now the "East Main") across 60, and to the throat of the Transflo yard. There was a tangent track to where the yards used to be where a lumber facility of some kind was built and existed until very recently. With all the construction of the crosstown connector going on, I think that facility was razed.
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Turntable Wreck:
SAL Roundhouse, Tampa, Florida, 1961: I was working on the second shift and I was with another machinist and we were setting the valves of an Alco yard switcher’s McIntosh and Seymour engine. We were working on the track that came straight into the roundhouse from the fuel rack to the turntable to the drop pit and the overhead crane area. The locomotive that we were working on was spotted at the drop pit track next to the roundhouse office. It was still daylight but it would have been dark in about an hour. I was on top of the engine and I heard a gosh awful noise and I looked around towards the noise that was at the turntable just in time to see an Alco road switcher locomotive going over on its side. The locomotive had been shoved onto the turntable with a cut of locomotives and the tracks were not lined up. I never did see the hostler or his helper so I don’t know what happened to them. They might still be running away as far as I know! The noise was from the crossties on the turntable that the locomotives wheels were breaking. The Alco didn’t go all the way over but it went over far enough that the top part of the locomotive’s carbody was leaning against the upright beam of the upside down “U” shaped I-beam that formed a loop over the turntable. That looped I-beam was at the center of the turntable and there was a part at the top of it where the slip rings were located for the electrical power for the turntable’s electric motors.
I saw lube oil and cooling water flying out of the sides of the locomotive. I quickly got down off of the engine that I was working on and I ran to that locomotive and climbed up on it and went into the cab shut down the engine. That locomotive’s wheels were off of the tracks and the weight of the locomotive had broken some of the crossties on the turntable. After I had shut the engine down and I was back out of the cab and onto the turntable looking at it, I thought to myself, what a fool I was! The I-beam upright could have broken and I would have been in the cab of that locomotive when it rolled on over and down into the turntable hole!
As I was looking at it, my foreman came running up and he said, “Get a torch, Mac!” and he kept repeating those words over and over to me and I just looked incredulously at him. Then, after he calmed down a bit, he told me that he was looking for me to go to Mulberry, Florida to see about a locomotive with a problem. So my helper and I gathered up our tools as quickly as possible and we got into the shop truck and away we went to Mulberry!
When we got back to the Gary roundhouse just before the shift change at 11:30 pm,there was a number of men working at the turntable with floodlights all around the area and the 100 ton capacity pneumatic jacks, crossties, other large timbers, etc. They were working to get that locomotive back up onto the tracks.
I checked in with the third shift foreman and then I went home from work. The next afternoon when I came to work, everything was just as if nothing had ever happened. The turntable was repaired and all of the broken crossties had been replaced and everything was back to normal. There was not even any talking about what had happened the evening before either! Things happen fast on the railroad. Well, Sometimes!
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| 1 1968, ca. The turntable at Gary Shops, Tampa, FL. The building on the left had the large Ingersol Rand air compressor in it for the shop's air supply and it also housed the boiler for the shop's steam. The tall tank on the side of the building is the reservoir for the shop's compressed air. I have no idea who the man is that is standing near the center of the turntable. |
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| 2 1968, ca. SAL Turntable & Alcos at Gary Shops, Tampa, FL. In this photo, you can see the fueling track lined up with the turntable and if it had been lined up like it is in this photo, the incident would not have happened. |
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| 3 1968, ca. SAL Locomotives #1132 & #604 was at the Fueling area of Gary Shops, Tampa, FL. The washer for the locomotives was on the track that is next to it and is empty. The washer is the pipe with the rounded part at the top and the small house is where the chemicals for the wash water was injected into it. Notice the sand house behind and to the side of the locomotive units. |
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| 4 1968, ca. SAL Gary Railroad Roundhouse. The west side of the roundhouse is showing two stalls for locomotives. We did lots of work outdoors in the areas where the locomotive are shown here. There was work pits beneath the locomotives shown here. The tracks farther away from the roundhouse did not have work pits and the track next to the power house was where we did the load box and engine testing work. There was a city street that dead ended right behind where these locomotives are. |
1915 Map of SAL in Tampa
CSX Map
The beginning of a photo series of the roundhouse after abandonment but before demolition
