Amtrak Beech Grove shops - 08-03-2019
The key facility tour for the C&OHS annual conference this year – held in West Chester OH – was a visit to Amtrak’s (ATK) heavy repair shop at Beech Grove IN, near Indianapolis. Two bus-loads of conference attendees went. Although it was a Saturday, Amtrak had several supervisors available to be tour guides.
Beech Grove was the main locomotive shop of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Ry. of which the New York Central was the lessee.
1. One of the individual groups almost ready to begin their tour. ATK diesel shop.
2. ATK coach shop 1.
3. ATK Superliner inside Coach Shop 1.
4. ATK Diesel shop with 51, 98, and 460.
5. ATK F59PHI 460 was originally in Cascade Service. Diesel Shop website says these units were sold to Metra.
6. ATK Diesel Shop. P42DC 51 and 98.
7. ATK P42DC 98 was build in 1997. Diesel Shop.
8. ATK traction motor testing.
9. ATK GE loco trucks.
10. ATK GE loco truck with cables.
11. ATK passenger car trucks build by Buckeye Steel Castings (no longer in business).
12. ATK passenger car trucks.
13. ATK Coach Shop 2.
14. ATK Coach Shop 2. View 2.
15. ATK sleeping car 62027.
16. ATK Horizon coach 54540.
17. ATK coach 54530 on lifts.
18. ATK power house, engineering, stores and air brake building.
19. Now the ATK air conditioning shop, this building was built by the Big Four (NYC) in 1910. Retired cars are on the left.
20. ATK Coach Shop 2. Building 30.
21. ATK Coach shop 2 was built in 1910.
22. ATK retired rolling stock.
23. ATK Trim Shop.
24. ATK transfer table and rails.
25. ATK Coach Shop 2.
26. ATK P42DC stripped of paint, etc. in the Trim Shop.
27. ATK Trim Shop paint booth in Trim Shop. Coach shop 2 in the background.
28. ATK coach 54584 in Trim Shop.
29. ATK Superliner 1 coach-baggage in Trim Shop.
30. ATK coach seats will go back into the car they were taken out of.
31. ATK 150-ton capacity transfer table that was recently built (or rebuilt).
32. Coach shop 2 in background at end of ATK transfer table.
33. ATK Viewliner sleeper.
34. Forge shop. ATK passenger trucks.
35. New ATK trackmobile (“shop goat”).
36. They didn’t have any hand-outs, so I shot this on the wall of the administration building lobby. This pertains mainly to the threat of tornados. ATK shop layout. Click here for a larger view.
Our Amtrak hosts were very gracious and knowledgeable. That provided water. We had box lunches in their employee dining room. There were several engines and cars that had been involved in wrecks, and Amtrak requested we not photograph them as the accidents were still in litigation.
I wish to thank Bill Ford, chairman of the West Chester (Cincinnati) Conference for arranging this great tour.
Train images used by permission of Everett N Young