Station: Wyoming, MI - PM Roundhouse

As the inspection of the new buildings neared completion, the July 9, 1924 Grand Rapids Press reported: "The roundhouse has pits for 42 locomotives, the power house has four 350 horsepower boilers, huge air compression engines, water evaporator and electric generators. The huge new locomotive assembly and repair shop is about 450 feet long with 23 pits and huge electric cranes, one capable of carrying 200 ton locomotive sections anywhere in the shop. 30 locomotives are stored on the sidings for fall use and construction of 300 refrigerator cars is underway at the nearby car building plant."

 

Cost for the new roundhouse was approximately $2,000,000, with all the new facilities and equipment totaling $17,000,000 ($287,418,304 in today's money). Those amounts alone tell the magnitude of the essential role the Wyoming Yard and shops played in the Pere Marquette's operations, which carried on as the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway as of 1947. 

 

The roundhouse formed a full circle when built in 1924, with only the entranceway to the turntable not covered. By 1978 nearly half the stalls had been removed, as by then they had other more modern diesel shops on the property. By the mid ’80s the entire roundhouse was gone with only its outline remaining.

 

[Comments from Tom Carter on FB].

---

Time Line