More steam than diesel, coal tower in background

NG503040

More steam than diesel, coal tower in background

Facilities

The adjectives “gray", "dull", and "dreary” employed in the last footnote are perfectly suited to Shelby Street roundhouse and its environs. When in Indianapolis, the battered remnants of the NYC'S steam fleet come here for servicing and for whatever repairs (scotch tape-and-bailing-wire variety) are needed to make them usable again. Since the demise of Brightwood, Shelby Street with its creaking coal dock, faltering ash pits, inadequate and overtaxed turntable, and ancient and tumble-down roundhouse has been the citadel of steam in the city. The B&O, Monon, NKP, and finally the IC have dieselized, and the Pennsy's steam dispatchments out of its Hawthorne terminal do not approximate the business done at Shelby Street on a reasonably active day. This in spite of a working force cut to the very marrow- apparently as a result of official embarrassment over inability to make good on promises that the place would be closed. Here is the Shelby Street area on May 31, 1954, when the race specials were in town. The power lineup is as follows, from left to right: steam engines 3023, 5385, 5377, 3013, 2818, 3000, 5266, 5270 (and a formidable array of the deceased), with a single pair freight diesels, units 1816-1822, as a reminder of the approaching obliteration of scenes like this. On the right are maintenance of way headquarters, and in the background is the coach yard, bisected by Leota street. The picture was taken from the loft of the water tower.

Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor

2-1/4x3-1/4 neg

Spring, 1954

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engine terminal

404

Shelby St., Indianapolis, IN

See NG503040a