Wagoner, OK: Lost/MoPac/SIMS Depot

(Satellite)

Ken Madison posted three photos with the comment:

Train Depot Tuesday, Wagoner, OK,  October 2004, November 2005

Today's depot is the Missouri Pacific (MoPac) depot that was located at the Union Pacific, formerly MKT/MoPac, diamond on the south edge of downtown Wagoner OK.

This was the 2nd depot, build date unknown, that replaced a wood depot. Unfortunately it was demolished in October 2009.

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Google Earth, May 2008

I got an aerial photo by habit before I realized that 2009 is recent enough to be covered by Google Earth. Since I got it, I might as well include it.

Feb 20, 1973 @ 24,000; AR1VDEP00020007

Bush, IL: 1912 Tornado Destroyed MoPac/SIMS Roundhouse

(Satellite)

Morris Library posted

Jolly Roger: I believe the spot were the round house was located at is now Big Muddy Hogs. [I could not find Big Muddy Hogs.]

David Cantrell shared

Missouri Pacific roundhouse at Bush, IL hit by 1912 tornado.

- Morris Library

1910/10 Herrin Quad @ 62,500

I presume it was rebuilt in the same location.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Sierra Blanca, TX: Museum/Southern Pacific Depot

(Satellite)

Street View, May 2021

Raul Puente posted five photos with the comment: "The old Railroad Depot at Sierra Blanca, TX. For the last 30 years I have been driving through this town every summer in my way to Laredo. I finally stopped this last Friday to check out the town. The railroad Depot is now a museum and is located across the street from an old lodge. Very cool."

Thomas Dorman: Southern Pacific No. 3 type depot, built 1883. Sierra Blanca was the site of completion of America's Second Transcontinental Railroad (Joined Here in. 1881), SP meeting AT&SF, linking Atchison KS to Los Angeles CA, 15 December 1881.

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You don't find a collection of branding irons in a Midwest museum.

peetre, Sep 2016

I could not find the depot by looking at a satellite map. Fortunately, it is now a museum and Google Maps labeled it. When I saw the location, I understood why I could not find it --- it is too far from the tracks. It is far from today's tracks because the Southern Pacific route now joins the Missouri Pacific route east of town, and the SP tracks have been removed in town. Of course, both routes are now owned by UP.

1964/67 Sierra Blanca Quad @ 24,000

Kansas City, KS: UP/MoPac Armstrong, UP Matoon Creek and UP/RI Armourdale Yards

UP Armstrong: (Satellite)

UP Matoon Creek: (Satellite)

RI Armourdale: (Satellite, the southern part of this yard was the Rock Island.)

Caoimhín Kevin Bunker posted three images with the comment: "Here's just one of those perfectly posed roundhouse photographs:  Union Pacific's Kansas Division at Armstrong, KS., c.1870s.  We see four beautiful Baldwin 4-4-0s and four handsome Rogers 4-4-0s, the eldest and smallest of which (making the most stack exhaust) had been downgraded to a switch engine and fitted with pilot footboards.  The engine crews also posing were justifiably proud.  Southern Methodist University Libraries - digital collections (online)"

Guillermo Bas: Not all the engines shown were 4-4-0s, KP 80 (third from the left) was an 0-6-0 switcher, Baldwin 2326 of 1870. She survived until 1916 as Shop Goat Cheyenne.

Rolando Maggi shared

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Dana T. Parker posted
The Union Pacific roundhouse at Armstrong, Kansas (ca 1870s), showing off its handsome engines...
Tom Hamilton: I assume that this is Armstrong yard in Kansas City, KS.
Dana T. Parker: Yes. Armstrong used to be a separate community, but was absorbed by Kansas City.
Rolando Maggi shared

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John Ott commented on Caoimhín's post
The Kansas Pacific started life as the "Union Pacific Railway Eastern Division" in hopes of siphoning off some of the congressional grant money and land offered to builders of a transcontinental RR. Here's one of the Rogers locomotives fresh from the factory, according to the Rogers order specs.
And he commented on Dana's post
Wrong "Union Pacific." Kansas Pacific Rwy started out corporate life as the Union Pacific Rwy. Eastern Division in 1863, but had no relation to the Union Pacific RR starting in Omaha. Started laying track in Kansas City that same year, changed name to Kansas Pacific in 1869, and reached Denver in 1870. The photo of the roundhouse in Armstrong, KS, was taken in 1873. Here's one of their early engines.

Andre Ming commented on Dana's post
I've always really liked this picture. I have this smaller non-cropped version that shows the original photograph I.D. plate.

1957 Shawnee and Kansas City Quads @ 24,000

This is how I learned about the Armourdale Yard.

Fans of Rock Island Lines posted

Terry Hinds: Flood of 1951. The Missouri River caused the Kaw river to back up. Heavy rains in the region caused bad flooding.

Labadie, MO: 1970 2.4gw Labadie Power Plant

(Satellite)

Mining #Shorts posted

West of St. Louis, four massive generating units rise above the Missouri River floodplain.

Together, they form the Labadie Power Plant, the biggest coal-fired power station in Missouri.

Commissioned in June 1970, the Ameren-owned facility carries a generating capacity of roughly 2,400 megawatts. That’s enough to supply electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes across the Midwest during peak demand periods.

The plant burns low-sulfur coal shipped mainly from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

Labadie became one of the defining pieces of Missouri’s industrial grid during the second half of the 20th century. Even today, coal still dominates Missouri’s electricity mix, and Labadie remains one of the state’s most important generating assets.

But the station also became highly controversial.

Environmental groups and federal data have repeatedly ranked Labadie among the nation’s largest sulfur dioxide emitters and one of America’s biggest greenhouse gas sources. Debates surrounding ash ponds, groundwater contamination and air pollution placed the facility under growing scrutiny over the past decade.

Despite that pressure, the plant continues operating while many other large coal stations across the country shut down permanently.

That contrast says a lot about the current American power grid.

Even as utilities push toward gas, wind and solar, giant coal plants like Labadie still carry a major share of the electrical load when demand surges across the Midwest.

1972/73 Labadie Quad @ 24,000

Jewett, TX: Nucor Steel Bar Mill (Including Rebar)

(Satellite)

Brian Olson posted two images with the comment: "Irony.  US Steel's American Bridge division supplied the original 50 ton EAFs to Nucor Jewett facility in Texas in 1975."

Jonathan Haynes: They used Fuchs eafs also.

Brian Olson: Jonathan Haynes I they have a completely new high bay now. I'm sure the American Bridge furnaces are all gone and the area is used for some other purpose now. They did their job.

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Satellite

The railroads were CB&Q and MoPac.

1982/83 Jewett Quad @ 24,000

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."

Little Rock, AR: Union Station and MoPac/SIMS Railyards

Depot: (Satellite)

Classification Railyard: (Satellite)

Backshop Railyard: (Satellite, it still has a transfer table.)

Abandoned Coach Railyard: (Satellite)

Street View, Jun 2015

Bob Likestrains posted two photos with the comment: "Union Station in Little Rock, AR.— at Little Rock Union Station."

Randy Early shared

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RRAdventrues posted four photos with the comment: "Union Station— in Little Rock, AR."

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The Amtrak passengers have to walk a rather long way aways to get to the platform.

Street View, Aug 2019

The back shop with a transfer table on the east end.

Satellite

SIMS (St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern) had two through routes this this metro area. By they 1954, MoPac had bought SIMS. MoPac and SSW (Cotton Belt) had branches that terminated here. I presume that MoPac and SSW shared this station with SIMS. Rock Island also had a through route, but they had their own Rock Island Depot. What remains of all of these routes is now owned by UP.

1954 North Little Rock, Mc Almont, Sweet Home and Little Rock Quads @ 24,000

Big Springs, TX: MoPac/Texas & Pacific Roundhouse and Car Shop

(Satellite)

Big Country Railroad Historical Society posted

The days when Big Spring prospered with the railroad.

Today we share an arial photograph taken by Jack M. Haynes above the T&P yard and roundhouse in Big Spring, Texas. Various structures can be seen throughout this photo. These structures include the car repair facility, a large water tower, the main yard, and a truss bridge that crosses over the yard at the top of the photo. The roundhouse and the car repair facility have since been demolished. However, the foundation of both and a majority of the tracks from each structure can still be seen to this day. 

Jack M. Haynes photo. 1949.

Texas and Pacific Railway Collection. Provided by the Grace Museum to The Portal to Texas History.

Dennis DeBruler shared

John Karges posted
Site of the former Big Spring turntable and roundhouse whisker tracks, current GoogleEarth view.

Dennis DeBruler commented on his share
The remnants of part of the foundation are still visible, https://maps.app.goo.gl/968uCuKRc3jTMuUZA.

Dennis DeBruler commented on his share
The roundhouse appears in a 1942 topo map, but only the turntable appears in a 1954 topo map. 1942/42 Big Spring North Quad @ 62,500