North Little Rock, AR: UP/MoPac Railyard and Jenks Shops

Railyard: (Satellite, it still has a hump yard)

Engine Servicing: (Satellite, it has a turntable, but that was not for a roundhouse)

Backshops: (Satellite, all traces of the roundhouses and original turntables are gone)

SIMS = St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern

Tony Linz posted
This a photo the Missouri Pacific shops in North little Rock Arkansas in the 1940's or 50's.
Rich Ketcham: That’s a huge complex!

Tim Starr posted
The huge Baring Cross Shops at North Little Rock, Arkansas were first built by the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern but later (1917 onward) became one of the Missouri Pacific's main back shops.

Tony Linz commented on Rich's comment
And that is only the shop area, the stockyards and hump yard are around the bend to the right. 
[Actually, this is not the heyday of steam operations because they have already removed most of a roundhouse to make room for a diesel fuel tank, etc.]

Tony commented on his post
There were three other RR in town many moon ago.
[A couple of comments concluded that the two roundhouses could handle nearly 50 locomotives at one time.]

The bridge in the lower-right corner is still being used.

1954 North Little Rock and Mc Almont Quadrangles @ 1:24,000

Update:

Betty Briner Davidson posted

November 17, 2023

Arkansas 

It's time for a different kind of Flashback Friday.  We need your help!

The North Little Rock History Commission is looking for any photographs of the interior or exterior of the St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern roundhouses at the Baring Cross shops.

A photograph in 1921 of one of the roundhouses, with a 75-foot turntable and completed in 1912, is shown here. The turntable allowed workers to turn the steam engines around. While the engines could go in reverse, they didn’t operate very well in that gear.

Started in 1907, but plagued with delays, the 42-stall roundhouse, which accommodated larger steam locomotives brought in for repairs and maintenance, was finally built close to Pike Avenue in November 1912. Some of the buildings on Pike and Big Rock Mountain are seen in the background.

A smaller roundhouse with 25 stalls and a 60-foot turntable was built in 1890 by the Iron Mountain Railroad, which merged with Missouri Pacific in 1917. Both roundhouses were used until the smaller one was mostly torn down by about 1950. The larger one was demolished in 1955, shown here in a North Little Rock Times photo published on June 23, 1955.

Diesel engines began replacing steam locomotives in the 1940s and 1950s. The roundhouses, which serviced the steam engines, were replaced by the diesel repair shop at Baring Cross.

The Memphis & Little Rock Railroad and the St. Louis Southwestern (Cotton Belt Route) also built roundhouses in the city. The M&LR roundhouse, built in 1878, was near Locust and East Fourth. The roundhouse in the Cotton Belt yards, built in 1910, was south of East Washington and just east of Buckeye.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

North Little Rock Tourism

Danny Majors shared
North little Rock Arkansas