Manchester Roundhouse

Does anyone have any pics of the Lehigh valley roundhouse located in manchester. I'm looking for a much info as possible as well as pics?

None from the glory days of steam. By the late 1960s, if I recall correctly, the LVRR utilized but one or two bays of the building for diesel locomotive repairs. The turntable remained intact right up to ConRail and the abandonment of the engine service facilities at Manchester. In the late 1970s the building was utilized for a short time as a warehouse. The turntable was removed and the pit filled in by the warehousing firm. The tall boiler room smoke stack was demolished in the mid 1960s.

TB Diamond wrote:None from the glory days of steam. By the late 1960s, if I recall correctly, the LVRR utilized but one or two bays of the building for diesel locomotive repairs. The turntable remained intact right up to ConRail and the abandonment of the engine service facilities at Manchester. In the late 1970s the building was utilized for a short time as a warehouse. The turntable was removed and the pit filled in by the warehousing firm. The tall boiler room smoke stack was demolished in the mid 1960s.

All correct, except the turntable was never removed. the turntable bridge is still there to this day..although its been partially (mostly) buried for decades and its in terrible shape.

here are my semi-recent pics, a few years old:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~scottychaos ... ester.html

The Lehigh Valley Railroad Historical Society, based a few miles from the roundhouse in Shortsville, cleared away all the brush and trees from the turntable pit and around the front of the roundhouse this past summer (after the pics in the above link)
so the turntable should be much more visable now..I havent been by to check it out yet though.

Scot

Actually the turntable is still there, although the pit has been filled in as TBD says. It was locked in the desired position and became merely part of the siding. Stoda Corp. stored tomato paste there and trucked it to Ragu in Rochester. They would get 8 car multiple shipments from California. ONCT crews would spot the first two cars at the dock by crossing the turntable, and the other 6 would be left on the lead. Stoda had a big Trojan with a coupler which they used to move the cars around. Empties were left on the tail track for the railroad to pick up.

The warehouse company filled in the various pits and stalls with a thick layer of concrete. It made a nice smooth floor for storage and fork lift travel, but added still another nail in the coffin of the building as it would be a major project to remove it to allow tracks back in there - to say nothing of environmental issues, leaking roof, broken windows, etc, etc.

Get there soon, Scot. They cleared the brush by cutting it which doesn't kill boxelders, it will just coppice out twice as thick next summer.

I wouldn't worry about the brush anymore. The building will be looked after. I thought that springbrook grain was in the building? So they filled in the pits with new concrete and floors, how thick is the new floor? Anyone have pics from way back? Stoda who were they and are they still around? I know that the track leading up to the roundhouse has been cut back a bit. I the inside of the building intact or did they stripe everything out? The machine shop anex is thee much left of it? When they used it as a warehouse i guess they removed all the rail inside? I see a great future for the building and am looking hard for blue prints of the building if anyone nows where to find them?I there much left of the yard trackage?

You see a great future for the building? Look through the back pages of this LV forum, there is another thread way back about the roundhouse. I won't waste time repeating all the details but the only future for the building is a bulldozer and a wrecking ball. The building is shot, and the grounds have various contamination issues. Nothing of any value is in it, it is completely stripped and parts of it are falling down. I sincerely wish it could be saved but unless you hit the Powerball is just isn't going to happen. The land it sits on has a lot of potential value but there are 2 problems - one is contamination, the other is a big old roundhouse sitting on it. The building is worthless.

BR&P wrote:You see a great future for the building? Look through the back pages of this LV forum, there is another thread way back about the roundhouse. I won't waste time repeating all the details but the only future for the building is a bulldozer and a wrecking ball. The building is shot, and the grounds have various contamination issues. Nothing of any value is in it, it is completely stripped and parts of it are falling down. I sincerely wish it could be saved but unless you hit the Powerball is just isn't going to happen. The land it sits on has a lot of potential value but there are 2 problems - one is contamination, the other is a big old roundhouse sitting on it. The building is worthless.

Sadly, I have to agree..
im all for Railroad preservation! but for things that *can* and *should* be saved..Its 30 years too late to save this one..
never gonna happen.
and even if someone could restore it..what then? for what purpose?
why would anyone sink many millions of dollars into the building just to have it sitting there looking pretty?

too big.
WAY too far gone.
no purpose.
it just not going to make it.
sorry, but reality is a cruel mistress..

Scot

Ye of little faith to all. I have on good authority that the roundhouse will be saved in the next few months. And for what purpose you might say. Railroad purposes and small museum in 2 bays. It will be in private hands and be restored to what it was built for. As for the grounds they are fine and being dealt with as we speak. I don't see anyone posting any new pics of the site recently showing the roof or anything else. Pic of what it looks like today would be nice, not a year ago.

Sorry to be a Doubting Thomas, but I'll believe it when I see it, so I will take you up on your challenge and swing by there tomorrow.

Hey, if some Bill Gates type steps forward and plunks down money to save the roundhouse I'm all for it. Like I said I wish it could be saved. But people who have millions to toss around are rather rare so pardon me if I think you're inhaling.

The grounds are NOT fine, there is fuel oil contamination and asbestos. When Springbrook Grain went out of existence the country could have taken the property for taxes but did not do so due to environmental issues. This has been in the newspapers, it's not speculation.

You ask for photos of the roof now, not a year ago. Do you think it's fixing itself? It looks the same now as it did then except a bit more worn out. And what railroad purposes can it be used for, when tracks do not even go to it any more? The door are falling off some of the stalls, the ceiling is falling to the floor, the windows are gone, a building has been built over part of the turntable pit which would prevent it from turning even if the pit had not been filled with dirt. And while the interior has not been "striped", it HAS been STRIPPED of anything usable.

I'd love to see the building saved and restored. There are other roundhouses surviving in various uses. It's not impossible but there are a lot more strikes against the place besides just old age. If you've got any facts, post them here. But if this is one of those "they're putting the Lehigh back in" pipe dreams please spare us.

Erie13- To be blunt about it... what info do you have and how did you obtain it? Public investment or private investment? Large expenditures like this are hard to hide and keep secret. If we knew more about you and who you're representing, prehaps we can help serve you better. This is not the time to be "coy."

-otto-

We can all dream to be sure. While the roundhouse is mostly complete structurally and, by that I mean it's original footprint, it's in pretty tough shape. About the most practical thing anyone might do is to preserve maybe two or three bays worth and even that would be a huge undertaking financially. Unless someone with cubic money, and an undying love for this structure comes along, chances of any preservation, other than what has already been undertaken by volunteers, is about as far as it will go. Get out and get your photos. I thought the coaling tower would stand long enough for me to get some shots of it but I was wrong.

A few years ago, on a rainy fall day, I walked through the roundhouse. It was raining almost as much inside the building as outside. This past fall I again visited the area. The building had deteriorated even more. Barring some massive funds for rebuilding, the best thing that could be done would be to demolish the building and to decontaminate and redevelop the grounds. Dislike saying this as an old Lehigh fan, but to deny what I perceive to be the truth would be illogical.

I did indeed swing by Manchester on my way to my shop and, to the surprise of no one here, there are no signs of activity what so ever.

As for the grounds they are fine and being dealt with as we speak.

There are, of course, no signs that anyone has done a thing since late last summer.

I don't see anyone posting any new pics of the site recently showing the roof or anything else. Pic of what it looks like today would be nice, not a year ago.

I couldn't see the roof from the ground, but the eves still have re-bar poking out of spaulling concrete, so I feel safe to say nothing has been done there either. Scot's pictures from a year ago show the building as it exists today.

Erie13,
I was originally willing to cut you some slack with your statement regarding the roundhouses' "great future". When I was a kid I was obsessed with the old DL&W terminal in Buffalo and had grand delusions of what kind of future it held. Unfortunately, it met the same fate that awaits the Manchester roundhouse. Like Scot said, reality is a cruel mistress. But to fabricate stories and out and out lie is not the way to win friends or respect.

Scot,
When boxelder trees are cut, they send out a dozen or two shoots from the main stump. True to form, those cut back last summer around the turntable have sent out thousands of shoots that are now 6 to 8 feet tall. Since you seem to be the de facto chronicler of the roundhouses' final years, if you want some good photos of the turntable, you should get there before the start of the next growing season. In a year or two, it will again disappear.

The one bright spot I was surprised to see was that the section of brush cleared by RG&E last year that had regenerated thickly this year, has once again been cleared and chipped, and the section I cleared by uprooting the trees with the Bobcat had been mowed some time in late summer. Judging by the weathering on the stumps, this must have happened many months ago and not part of a recent cleanup effort.