Columbus, OH: Pennsy 20th Street Shops Coaling Tower and Roundhouse

(Satellite)

Tim Starr posted two images with the comment: "I realize the Sanborn Insurance Maps of the late 1800s to mid-1900s had quite a few mistakes, but they are extremely valuable in figuring out how buildings were laid out and how sites changed over the years. Here are the Pennsy's Columbus, Ohio shops (sometimes called the Panhandle or 20th Street Shops) in 1922, along with an aerial photograph from the National Archives."

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Carl Venzke posted
Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotive at Columbus (OH) coaling tower in August 1956, picture JP. Lamb.

Raymond Storey posted
COLUMBUS OHIO...THE PRR
[According to Steve Patterson, this tower was downtown, not at 20th Street.]

Steve Patterson

Steve Patterson

I saved a "land scar" of a remnant of a roundhouse because you never know when a railroad might clean up the land.

Satellite

The documentation for a photo that has the coaling tower in the background provides this location. The remarks explain that the roundhouse remnant was part of this engine servicing facility. "The PRR 20th St. Shops on the right, largest on the system west of Altoona, were able to do all five class repairs on steam locomotives. To the left, Yard A & B were two of PRR's 5 yards in the Columbus metro." [John Dziobko]

Butch Stone posted
Old PRR yard 20st Columbus Ohio
Tim Shanahan shared

The 2005 SPV Map indicates the track along the south side of the roundhouse is CSX/(PRR+B&O). But the 1955 topo indicates that all of this track was PRR and Norfolk & Western terminated in the southern yard.

1955 Southeast Columbus Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

I zoomed out to record the railroad names. The track heading East is also labelled Pennsy if you pan far enough to the right.

1955 Southeast Columbus Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

John Williamson posted
Columbus, Ohio. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Twentieth Street shops looking northeast. My father worked for the PRR, before I was born. He was an electrician who could weld and found a job in the shops welding boilers. (Photo from the David Bunge Collection)
Robert Aumann How many stalls did this roundhouse have?
Warren Caudle count the exhaust stacks. railroads normally had one for each stall. looka like 44 to 48.
Robert Aumann Warren Caudle has 44 stalls. Finally found my magnafine glass so I could count the stacks.
Rodney Swingle All the dead steam engines on the left.

I did the following analysis of Pennsy facilities in Columbus before I came across the RailPictures info. I leave it because I don't have the heart to delete this work. I also added the topo map.


The oldest aerial photo I can find is 1957. There appeared to be an engine servicing yard above a wye with a roundhouse that was almost 360-degrees. I-670 goes over what was the west side of that roundhouse. But it seems the roundhouse had been torn down leaving just the cement floor, turntable, and a tall smokestack.

1955 Southwest Columbus Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

(The original posting)

Satellite

This roundhouse existed in 1957, but it was along the B&O. So it is not a candidate for the photographed engine servicing facility. (Actually, it is. See the update below.)There was another existing roundhouse in the southeast quadrant of this junction. And there is a shadow a little east of the roundhouse that looks like a coaling tower. But according to the 2005 SPV Map, this is in the Norfolk & Western Joyce Ave. Yard.

There was another roundhouse in what is now the northeast quadrant of Grandview and McKinley Avenues with the shadow of a coaling tower to the east. This engine servicing facility was on the west end of a yard that was between the existing mainline and McKinley Avenue. But this appears to be a yard for the Toledo & Ohio Central (TOC, a NYC subsidiary). I'm learning that the SPV Maps plot abandoned railroad routes, but not abandoned railroad yards.