West Pullman, Chicago, IL: Lost/Pennsy Panhandle Depot

(Satellite, based on a comment and photo below.)

Richard Fiedler posted
PRR Panhandle depot 119th and Halsted St in West Pullman.

Peter Jirousek: All of this is gone. I had no idea the panhandle line had such significant depots like this. PRR must have really dealt in some serious passenger business here. Does anyone know if this line had commuter service?

William Shapotkin: Peter Jirousek The answer is "yes." There were suburban trains as far as Crown Point, IN. To date I have not seen a timetable showing them (aside from a Chicago Union Station timetable showing that trains to/from Crown Point were operating). Interestingly enough, up until Amtrak, PRR (and later PC) showed schedules for train service operating betw Chicago and Crown Point (albeit operating via Colehower) up until Amtrak day (they were on the back of the Chicago-Valparaiso timetable). Additionally, ten ride tickets (on both PRR/PC and ERIE/EL) were sold up until each carrier's respective psgr operations ended.

John Polek: I read somewhere that passenger service on the PRR's Panhandle line ended in 1927, but I know nothing more than that. Hope this helps in someone's research into this line.

Richard Fiedler shared

Dennis DeBruler commented on Peter's question
Probably a lot of factory workers used it. The solar farm to the west and south of 120th Street used to be an International Harvester plant. And the brownland north of 120th Street used to be an Ingersoll plant. As with the Riverdale depot, it appears that Pennsy removed the depot before 1938. 1938 Aerial Photo

Dennis DeBruler commented on Peter's question
This was the IH Plant. Credit: a comment by David Daruszka on a post, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1270038776414622/permalink/1831407513611076/, via https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../ih-plano-works...

Dennis DeBruler commented on Peter's question
1953/56 Blue Island Quad @ 24,000

Speer, IL: Lost/ C&NW Depot and Grain Elevator

(Satellite, the aerial photos did not make sense, so I was not able to get a more precise location.)

Greg Simmons posted two images with the comment: "Found a couple postcards today.  Speer Il."

Richard Fiedler shared

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[Note the second grain elevator near the right side.]

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Speer is on the UP/C&NW branch that goes south from Nelson, IL. C&NW built it to access the coal mines in southern Illinois. This map doesn't help determine the location of the depot.

1937/49 Dunlap Quad @ 62,500

Speer is one of those rural towns that may have more grain bins than houses.

Satellite

Street View, Jun 2023

Omaha, NE: 1885-1999 Stockyards

(See satellite image below, only the Livestock Exchange building is left.)

Russel Spawn posted
Omaha, Nebraska STOCKYARDS.

Martin Tjossem: Was just thinking how back in the 1980's I hauled cattle, hogs, and sheep in or out of the St Paul, Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Omaha, St Joe, Kansas City, and St Louis stockyards and they are all gone now.

Satellite

It is the area labeled South Omaha on this map. The Pacific label in the bottom center is part of the Rock Island label. So, going clockwise, the stockyards were close to the Rock Island, CB&Q, C&NW, UP and Missouri Pacific.

1956/68 Omaha North and South Quads @ 24,000

nebraska
By the end of the 1880s decade, " South Omaha was established as a major meat center, and by 1956 Omaha was the largest meat producing city in the world."

Steve Raglin posted four photos with the comment:

The "Newsmakers" theme for January should probably include the Omaha stockyards which ranked as the world's largest livestock market from 1955-1971 (a very large feather in the cap for the city). Several large meat processing plants were part of that mix, including Armour & Co. and Swift. By 1999, all the work had shifted elsewhere and operations in South Omaha had essentially closed.

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nps
"Designed by Omaha architect George Prinz and completed in May 1926, the eleven story H-shaped Livestock Exchange Building towered over the South Omaha stockyards, serving as the center of the industry in Omaha....To house the offices of meatpacking firms, the Union Stockyard Company built the original Livestock Exchange Building in 1885. By 1924, the business had outgrown the building and leaders expressed interest in constructing a new building that would symbolize the continued prosperity of the industry in Omaha. The impressive new building housed not only offices but the Stockyards National Bank, a bakery, cafeteria, kitchen, cigar stand, telephone and telegraph offices, apartments and sleeping rooms, a clothing store, ballrooms, and a convention hall....The livestock industry continued to grow during the 1940s and boasted sites of four national packing houses: Armour, Cudahy, Swift, and Wilson. In 1955 the South Omaha stockyards surpassed Chicago’s as the largest stockyard and meat processing center in the country. Changes in the market during the 1960s led to the decline of the industry and three of the largest packing companies closed. By 1976 the last major packing house closed, signifying the end of the great era of the Omaha stockyards....Despite the decline of the industry, the Livestock Exchange Building still stands in South Omaha, an impressive and unique architectural achievement, combining Romanesque and Italian Renaissance Revival styles. Renovated in 2005 and now houses more than one hundred apartments and two ballrooms that can be reserved for events."

clui
"The stockyards at Omaha closed in 1999, and the labyrinth of collapsing corrals and pens around the old Livestock Exchange buildings are now parking lots. In the 1960's this was the largest livestock center in the world, filled with thousands of animals on trading days, and surrounded by meatpacking plants. It surpassed the more famous Union Stockyard in Chicago as the busiest stockyard in 1955, when nearly 43,000 cattle passed through the yard in a single day. The industry trend of moving the slaughterhouses closer to the cattle feedlots, led by companies like IBP (which was purchased by Tyson in 2001), led to the demise of this and other stockyards, and changed the economy of the meatpacking cities like Omaha, Chicago, and Kansas City. There are, however, a few meatpacking plants still in operation at the stockyards, like the Greater Omaha Packing Company, which processes 750,000 steers annually."

Castle Rock, MN: Wood Grain Elevator

Feed Mill: (Satellite)

Storage: (Satellite)

Feed Mill  

Street View, Aug 2025

Street View, Aug 2025

Bob Moore posted
Castle Rock, MN

1957/58 Farmington Quad @ 62,500

Since both Milwaukee and Rock Island went bankrupt, I researched who owned this route now. PGR is Progressive Rail so it looks like either PGR or UP now owns the route.

mn

I found a map with better resolution. Castle Rock is on the UP route.

StreamLinerMemories

Storage Grain Elevator

This storage elevator is a couple blocks north of the feed mill.

A view of the south side.

Street View, Aug 2025

A view of the north side. I included the feed mill on the left side. The right side looks like fertilizer supply.

Street View, Aug 2025

Was Philippi, WV

Whoops, a duplicate. Please go there.

If I remember, I'll delete this post in a week or so.

Sprague, WA: NP Depot and Wood Grain Eelvator

Depot: (Satellite)

Elevator: (Satellite)

Street View, Sep 2025

Street View, Jul 2023

Street View, Sep 2025

Brian Ambrose posted
Grain elevators at Sprague,WA on Wednesday 4-8-26.  Info says they are privately owned and have not seen use in years.

It looks like BNSF still owns this NP route.

BNSF

Wendover, UT: Lost/Western Pacific Roundhouse & Water Tower and US-40

Roundhouse: (Satellite, a guess based on several Google Earth images.)

Water Tower: (Satellite)

US-40 Overview

Tim Starr posted

When researching the Wendover roundhouse five years ago, I saw that the little town was used as an air force base during World War II, but didn't quite realize its importance until a few years later when watching an episode of Mysteries of the Abandoned (one of my favorite shows). It was actually used as a training facility for crews (including the Enola Gay) that dropped the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan. 

The community of Wendover, bordering the great Bonneville Salt Flats, was nearly passed over as a stop on the Western Pacific as it was constructing tracks west out of Salt Lake City due to the extreme lack of water. Shafter, Nevada, about 40 miles west of Wendover, had a stable water supply and better living conditions for workers. However, railroad directors calculated that the additional distance from Salt Lake City would result in about $100,000 more in overtime expenses paid to workers compared to the cost of hauling water to Wendover. This made Wendover the practical choice, if not the most desirable choice. 

In 1905 a division yard and eight-stall roundhouse made of wood and timber framing was built on the southeast side of town. The photograph above shows the roundhouse a short time after it was built, highlighting the mostly treeless, arid environment. Water had to be piped in from 23 miles away at Pilot Springs to wash out and fill up the boilers. 

Dieselization began before World War II, as soon as officials realized that the new type of motive power could operate around the clock without stopping for water. Rather than purchase 4-8-8-4 engines during the war like the Union Pacific did, the WP opted to use Electro-Motive FT units instead. This not only eliminated the water issue but avoided the need to upgrade several turntables. The roundhouse had therefore outlived its usefulness after the last steam locomotive ended its run and was demolished in 1952, replaced by a one-stall diesel house. The only traces remaining of the roundhouse are the outlines of a few concrete stall foundations in an otherwise empty field. (Utah State Historical Society photo)

The town has no use for the roundhouse, but it does have a use for the water tower.

Street View, Aug 2024

You can tell this is a wilderness area because there are only 1:250,000 scale maps in the 50s and 60s.

I see the Air Force base was already closed in 1955. And this topo map taught me that US-40 went through this town.

1955/75 Elko Quad @ 250,000

This is the worst satellite exposure that I have seen. The oldest aerial photo I could find was 1953, and it also had a bad exposure.

Satellite

So I checked out Google Earth. On the right side of this image below the center, we see a semi-circle of trees. As I flipped through the Google Earth images, that was the only consistent semi-circle.

Google Earth, Apr 2023