Clarksville, OH: Old Wood Grain Elevator is now a Sawmill

(Satellite)

The gravel driveway was the Pennsy RoW. They have built a building on the RoW.

Street View, Jun 2012

Street View, Apr 2018

Ryan King posted
Clarksville Ag in Clarksville, Ohio today. Not the best picture but my first contribution to the group. My new job has me working with all kinds of ag retailers and some of them have awesome old setups.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Ryan's post
They have built a building on the old Pennsy rail bed.
1960 Clarksville Quad @ 24,000
The grain elevator is now labeled as a sawmill.
https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5...

Dennis DeBruler commented on Ryan's post
The old Master Mix and Kent signs don't surprise me. But a modern looking Master Mix sign does surprise me.
 https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjxcd7...

Ben Patrick, Aug 2022

Cudahy, WI: ATI Forged Products and 1959 Counterblow 85 Hammer

(Satellite)

I've seen several forging companies in the USA disappear. So finding one that is still operating is noteworthy. 

0:47 video @ 0:00, cropped
Gary Demien: You can feel the thing shake the ground for blocks.

Frank Daleccio, Sep 2020

I don't know if all of this equipment is at this location.

ATImaterials

Salem, OH: Butech Bliss and "Glowing" NS Train Wheels

(Satellite, one of three locations in Salem. [ButechBliss-about])

This video is of the train that derailed in East Palestine, OH, in Feb 2023. A controlled burn of tank cars carrying vinyl chloride released toxic chemicals. They had to evacuate a lot of people before they started that burn. This video is from a security camera at Butech Bliss, 20 miles before the derailment.

3:53 video @ 1:17

Butech Bliss makes equipment for steel mills. This rolling mill is an example of a product that they make.

safe_image for Butech Bliss - Steel Equipment Manufacturing Company
Brian James: The train in question I believe does not come through Canton. NS's primary route from Chicago to Pittsburgh is via Toledo, and Cleveland via the old New York Central main, southeast to Alliance on an old Pennsy (the C&P) main, and then east to Pittsburgh on the old Pennsy (P,Ft.W,&C) to Chicago main. Conrail sold off the line west of Crestline, and traffic between Crestline, and Alliance is down to just a few trains a day these days.

Photo, Apr 2015

In addition to rolling mill equipment, they do extrusion press and forging equipment.

ButechBliss-extrusion

ButechBliss-extrusion

It looks like they have absorbed alot of companies and support their products.

ButechBliss-extrusion

Somerset, NY: 1984-2020 655mw Somerset Power Plant and Boiler Diagrams

(Satellite, enough was gone that I got an image from Global Earth below)

"The plant's closure marks the end of coal-fired energy generation in the state of New York." Subcritical [gem]

Judging by a USGS map, they built their own industrial spur from the NYC route in Lockport, NY.

James Cavanaugh Photography posted
From my Archives. A 1990 view of the now decommissioned 655 megawatt Somerset Power Plant.
Ian Hapsias shared

Gary Diefendorff posted
[Several comments discuss the SCR retrofit.]

Gary Diefendorff commented on his post
[He also provided a diagram without the people being highlighted.]

These diagrams motivated the creation of a Boiler Drawings Album.

Switz City, IN: Comet Coal Mine and Page 621

(Satellite, the trees and lakes were a coal mine. I'm not sure if it was one of the Comet mines.)

Wayne Ferrers posted four photos with the comment: "1937 Page 621, Comet Coal, Switz City, IN. Photos taken in 1984. My dad operating at the time."

Jay Wilson: Can always tell it a Page with the walking spud. And the framework was always different.

[I've read that Page built their own engines. And judging from some comments, they were low rpm with a few big cylinders.]

Donald Jones: Is this the same engine that's on display at White River Valley club in Elnora Indiana????

Wayne Jeffers: Donald Jones yes

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Larry Barragree commented on Wayne's post
The Morgan Mine at Kingman also had a 621 Page.
Paul Pillau: Larry Barragree even with two Page engines it still burned less fuel than a 4600 with the single Cat D-379.
Jerry Lacy: Larry Barragree I guess that page made single story and 2 story draglines.
Larry Barragree: Jerry Lacy The Kingman one was post WW 2. It had two Diesel engines, one on the main floor to run the hoist, drag, walkers and a smaller engine upper deck to run a generator which powered the swing, or so I was told.
Jay Wilson: Larry Barragree In line 3 cyl for the swing generator and a 5 cyl inline for the drag, hoist and walking.

The Indiana state government has marked Comet Coal as 28-2, 28-3 and 28-4 on this map.

1983 via IDNR

1983 via IDNR

I poked around on this interactive mpa, but I could not find Comet Coal 28-4.

Interactive

Comet Coal was a small mining operation compared with other mines in the region.

1986 Switz City @ 24,000

Ellicott City, MD: 1831 B&O Depot Museum and Caboose

Depot: (Satellite)

Caboose: (Satellite)

I recognize the name Ellicott City as the terminus for the B&O when Tom Thumb raced a horse. [Ammerican-Rails via Dennis DeBruler]

Facebook group

Street View, Jul 2019

I think this building was the freight house.

3D Satellite, looking East

The building to the North was the original station.

Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum posted
On Saturday at 1pm, Join the B&O Ellicott City Station Museum for a free guided tour. Learn about the history of how Ellicott City became the terminus of the first 13 miles of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with a guided tour of the oldest railroad station in the country. Tours are free. 

This view taught me that the above photo is rather old because the tree has grown a lot.

Street View, Jun 2022

The sign in the eaves, "Ellicott Mills," was the original name of the town.

Street View, Nov 2021

HowardCountyMD
"Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968, the B&O Ellicott City Station is the oldest surviving railroad station in the country. Built in 1831, Ellicott City (then Ellicott’s Mills) was the first stop on the B&O Main Line, 13 miles outside of Baltimore. The station was originally designed to handle freight, but eventually transitioned to also serve passengers by 1857. Although passenger service was discontinued in 1949, freight service continued until 1972. The station was preserved and restored by local preservation groups to continue to share the important role the B&O Railroad played in local industrial history."

 

Baltimore &  Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum posted
Join us on Saturday [Apr 15, 2023] for a FREE guided tour of the B&O Ellicott City Station Museum. Learn about how Ellicott City became the terminus of the first 13 miles of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with a tour of the oldest railroad station in the country. Meet in the museum gift shop at 1pm.
Tom Dunne shared

Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum posted

As it’s the first day of the month, we are celebrating another B&O Railroad first. The B&O Railroad was the first double tracked railroad to be completed in the United States. In February of 1831, the B&O Railroad would complete its secondary track between Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mills. This was a major achievement because it would enable safe and efficient movement of rail traffic on the early railroad. 

The dual tracks would enable more freight traffic to be moved between Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mills by the railroad and this helped to grow the prosperity of Ellicott’s Mills. The engineers of the B&O Railroad had originally intended for the line to be double tracked from the beginning but when the railroad first opened for public traffic in May 1830, only one of the lines between Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mills had been completed. The difficult and labor-intensive method of building the railroad using strap rail with heavy granite stone foundations had severely delayed construction. This meant that construction of the secondary track that would enable the safe passing of rail traffic was not fully completed until several months later in February 1831. The early strap rail design of the original tracks would eventually be replaced with modern iron rails.

The B&O’s Old Main Line would remain dual tracked until the 1950s. By then regular passenger service on the Old Main Line had ended and the freight traffic on the line was declining. The Old Main Line was reduced to a single track to increase the clearance through the tunnels along the line. The B&O would also introduce Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) systems to ensure rail safety. Today portions of the former secondary track of the Old Main Line remain as they are used as passing sidings to enable the safe movement of freight trains as they make their way along the Old Main Line.

Image: A view from the Platform of the Ellicott City Station circa the 1940s-50s showing the dual track structure of the B&O’s Old Main Line.

 

borailroad
"On display at Ellicott City Station is a replica of the Pioneer, a small wooden car that would be pulled by one horse at a time when the line first opened in back in 1830."

Bravo Tango, Dec 2020, cropped from an interior shot

Brava Tango, Dec 2020
Dennis DeBruler posted

This is the post that taught me about this museum.

Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum posted two images with the comment:

Please note that the Ellicott City Station Museum will be closed for essential maintenance from Feb. 8th-12th. Thank you for your understanding.

On this day in history, 7th February 1904, the Great Baltimore Fire began. This fire was the most devastating in Baltimore’s history. The fire began on the morning of 7th of February and would burn until 5pm the next day. The fire started in the Hurst building, a dry goods store, within minutes all the surrounding buildings were ablaze as the fire swept rapidly through downtown Baltimore. The battle against the raging inferno involved 1,231 firefighters. These firefighters included volunteers from the surrounding counties and outlying towns of Maryland. It is likely that members of the Volunteer Fire Department of Ellicott City also came to Baltimore to assist in fighting the blaze. The B&O Railroad played a vital role in bringing firefighters and fire equipment from nearby cities such as Frederick and Washington, DC. However, due to the lack of standardization of fire equipment, firefighters from outside of Baltimore found that their hoses and pump equipment were not compatible with the water systems in Baltimore, limiting their effectiveness.

The Great Baltimore Fire burned 70 city blocks of downtown Baltimore with over 1500 buildings destroyed in the blaze. One of the greatest losses was the destruction of the B&O headquarters on the corner of Baltimore and Calvert streets. This 1888 building was designed in the ornate Second Empire architectural style that symbolized the grandeur of the B&O Railroad. Sadly, many of the irreplaceable records and documents from the first decades of B&O Railroad were lost in this fire. A loss that is still felt by historians to this day. 

The Great Baltimore Fire was the most destructive fire in the United States since the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It destroyed much of Baltimore’s historic 19th century era Downtown and caused an estimated $200 million in property damage. The destruction of fire led to a massive reconstruction effort. In 1906, the Baltimore Sun reported that “one of the great disasters of modern time had been converted into a blessing.” The fire spurred a massive downtown urban renewal project, the city built new safer fireproofed buildings, modern sewerage systems and wider streets designed to facilitate streetcar traffic. In 1906 The B&O Railroad would complete its new headquarters building, a 13-story Beaux Arts style skyscraper on Charles Street. The new B&O Railroad headquarters was declared to be “a monument to the city’s progressiveness” that represented the rebirth of Baltimore in the aftermath of the fire.

Images: The old Baltimore and Ohio Headquarters building destroyed in great fire of 1904 

The ruins of downtown Baltimore in the aftermath of the fire (Enoch Pratt Free Library / State Library Resource Center)

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad History shared

Edward Bommer: BThe B&O office building on the left, burned down in the early1900's with the loss of nearly all the company's records. The site after that fire is the photo on the right. It could well be that gas was the issue and the building had been piped for gas lighting throughout when built in the late 1800's. Oddly at time, many people felt that those new "Edison lights" from electricity were more dangerous than gas. They could shock someone if they touched it wrong, or if it sparked from a short circuit that could start a fire. Gas could be easily shut off at the light. But was it always really SHUT OFF? Most working folks simply blew out their lit coal oil lamp to turn off the light at home and doing that unthinkingly at a gas-lit office may have been more common than we'd like to think. From the wreckage of the B&O office building, signs of an explosion are visible.

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Two photos posted by Marty Benard with the comment: "These are scans of the slides of the late Bill Howes.  He was a very interesting railroader.  If you didn't know Bill, you my want to look at this from TRAINS:  https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/.../william-f-howes-jr.../" 1974

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Dale V Rockwell: Before Baldwin-style.
Marty Bernard: Dale V Rockwell Please explain.
Dale V Rockwell: Marty Bernard E. Francis Baldwin was the B&O's Head Architect from 1872 until early 1900s. He designed most of what B&O built during that time period. His work is distinctive and stylish.
I think that freight house is Baldwin.

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Walter Rowe posted three photos with the comment: "Ellicott City Station, B&O Railroad Museum"

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Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station shared a Museum post

On July 24,1868, Ellicott City witnessed one of its worst disasters — the Great Patapsco Valley Flood of 1868.

The morning of July 24 began much like any other day in Ellicott City. However, an enormous storm cloud had settled on the Patapsco Valley, and it would bring with it torrential rain. That morning, over 18 inches of rain fell in under an hour, creating a torrent of surging flood water that tore apart the communities of the Patapsco Valley.

At 9:15am, the westbound mail train from Baltimore departed the Ellicott City Station. About a mile west of the city, this train would be swept up by an avalanche of flood water from the Patapsco Valley that would engulf the locomotive and its train cars. The train’s conductor, engineer and fireman were forced to abandon their locomotive and scramble up the steep walls of the railroad embankment for safety.

The flood of 1868 did enormous damage to the B&O Railroad. The railroad line was left a twisted damaged mess along the Patapsco Valley. The Patterson Viaduct, which spanned the Patapsco River at Ilchester and was one of the original stone bridges of the Old Main Line, was irreparably damaged. It would take the railroad two weeks to complete temporary repairs so the line could reopen for limited operations. Permanent rebuilding and repair of the line and its bridges took the railroad over two years to complete. Ellicott City suffered extreme damage from the flood. The Patapsco River rose at a rate of 5 feet in 10 minutes, it was reported that the flood waters reached as high as 40 feet. The B&O Ellicott City Station building would suffer severe flood damage. "Harpers Weekly" reported that, "The whole lower part of Ellicott City was flooded, goods were washed out of stores into the street and with furniture out of houses all lying in tangled heaps, with logs, trees, stones and the debris of houses and bridges."

It is estimated that at least 40-50 people died in the Great Flood of 1868. Sadly, it would not be the last flood to hit the community of Ellicott City, as later floods occurred in 1923, 1956, 1972, 2016 and 2018.

Image: The Great Flood in Maryland -- scene at the Patapsco Mills at the height of the flood, by Theodore R. Davis, Harpers Ferry, August 8, 1868.

Conor Conneally shared

The Patapsco Mills has grown and it looks like it is still operational. I wonder if it still gets rail service. The bridge is still standing for the industrial spur.

3D Satellite

So where is this bridge????

Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum posted
Conor Conneally shared

Martinsburg, WV: B&O Depot, 2 Roundhouses. Freight House and 2 Backshops

Backshop 1: (Satellite)

1866 Roundhouse: (HAER; Satellite)

Backshop 2: (Satellite)

Burned Roundhouse: (Satellite)

Depot/Hotel: (Satellite)

Freight House: (Satellite, has been removed)

3D Satellite

HAER WVA,2-MART,1A--10
10. INTERIOR VIEW OF WALLED-OFF SECTION OF LOCOMOTIVE WORK BAY SHOWING MASTER SCALE. - Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Martinsburg West Roundhouse, East End of Race & Martin Streets, Martinsburg, Berkeley County, WV
Tim Starr posted
Inside the B&O enclosed roundhouse at Martinsburg WV. At left is the "master scale." West Roundhouse is a building in the former engine and machine shops complex erected by the B&O in Martinsburg beginning in 1849. Destroyed by Confederate troops in 1861, the existing shops date from 1866. West Roundhouse was one of two identical buildings used for running repairs to locomotives. It is a sixteen-sided, brick-walled polygon covered by a bell-shaped roof over the locomotive turntable, with sixteen wedge-shaped work bays radiating from the turntable. The twin roundhouse was destroyed by arson.
Dennis DeBruler: This is one of several photos of that roundhouse: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/item/wv0255/

According to Jim's comment below, the roundhouse we see in this photo is the ruins we see in the above satellite image. 

Shaun Dorsey posted
The Roundhouse in Martinsburg and I belive the passenger station also. Another of my Dad's photos.
David Andrew Wieting: [The depot] was a hotel, but after Stonewall Jackson burned up most of the B&O in Martinsburg the hotel became the station. I believe it is still partly in use today as the station. It has been restored with additions made to it.
Jim Kelling: This roundhouse burned down about 1990 (arson) but the surviving one is from 1866. Thanks for sharing the photo; I’ve never seen it from this side before.

The photo above is looking West.

3D Satellite

 

WVNC Rails posted
A B&O passenger train moves through Martinsburg, WV past the west roundhouse and shops circa 1970. B&O E9A #1454 leads this westbound which at this date is probably Train #11, the "Metropolitan". Locomotives have always been the stars of the show but back in the day, the vast array of railroad owned freight cars---as opposed to leaser or privately owned today--were quite interesting in their own right. Library of Congress/HAER image
Dennis DeBruler: "What makes the building [roundhouse] unique and architecturally distinctive is its total cast-iron frame of octagonal columns, struts and beams. It is one of the most significant cast-iron framed buildings in the United States. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/wv0255/

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Depot

Street View, Sep 2019

 

Mark Hinsdale posted

Marty Bernard posted three photos with the comment: "4, 5 and 6. B&O Martinsburg, WV, May 1, 1971. Scott Armentrout photo, Bill Howes collection."

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I find it interesting that B&O covered the middle of their roundhouses.

Street View, Sep 2019

The roundhouse is now an interesting event space.

Raul Torres, Oct 2021

TheMartinsburgRoundhouse

Obviously, a freight house.

Neil Currin, Jun 2017

In the next street view, Aug 2021, the freight house is gone.

Street View, Oct 2019

This topo map does not show the freight house, but it does show the spur that comes down the grade and crosses the street. It looks like the burned roundhouse also had its middle covered.

1955 Martinsburg Quad @ 24,000

This appears to be the rectangular building that is between the two roundhouses. Given the forge, I presume this was the Frog & Switch Blacksmith Shop. So I conclude that the rectangular building that is north of the roundhouse is the Bridge & Machine Shop. [rental-rates]

Dolly Fergus, Apr 2017

They evidently sometimes move the caboose onto the turntable as a photo opportunity.

1 of 5 photos posted by Martinsburg Roundhouse
Wm Whittington shared
Martinsburg, WV Roundhouse.
Dennis DeBruler shared
Dennis DeBruler: It is a "decoration" in an event space:   https://www.roundhousewv.com/roundhouserental
Kyle McGrogan: Note the angled cast iron columns and rings at the various levels to support the roof. This was rebuilt and enlarged after the Civil War in 1866 to B&O Engineer Albert Fink's design. The building was based on one in Germany. There was a second one like this right next to this one , built in 1875, but it was destroyed in a case of arson before the Berkeley Country Roundhouse Authority took the site over.