Its about 1905 and the Beech Grove Shops are being dedicated. 1904/5 Beech Grove Shops - Larry Griffey Collection
Man, that's a huge crowd. I wonder if they are all employees? I'll try to find the location on Google Earth to see if any of the original buildings still exist. I'll post the link if I'm successful.
I found the location, and can display it in a Bird's Eye view, i.e. from a 45 degree angle. It looks like many, if not all the original buildings are still there. I don't know if the following link will display on any computer without having the Bing Maps application installed, but it's worth a try. I'm not sure if the link will connect properly. You may have to copy it into the Internet Explorer address bar before it will display. Also, you might have to download and install Bing Maps first, dunno know??? http://www.bing.com/maps/default.as...4NDA2NzY5OTA4NTMlN2UtMTMwLjYwOTM0MjM1NjMxNA==
What I find curious after studying the site for a while, is that all the tracks appear to be at right angles to the buildings. I would have thought the tracks would be aligned with the buildings so that cars could be brought in out of the weather for repair, especially during the winter.
Hank, the Bing map displayed fine, with a commercial for a "3-D" download. Roger, thanks for more history. I'll bet most of the folks were railroad employees, as the roads employed more people than probably any other industry back then. :tb-biggrin:
Jim, IIRC the 3D feature was a free download and upgrade. Did you click on the "Bird's Eye" feature? That gives a wonderful 45 degree angle view of the area. Then you can rotate around the same scene in 90 degree increments. This allows you to see the same buildings and yards from four different perspectives, which really gives you a feeling of being there. Apparently the images for each angle of the same view were acquired at different times. In many cases a car, loco, or even whole train will be different or moved between views of the same scene. I first noticed this while looking at a big yard near Chattanooga. Like you say, the railroads as a whole were the largest employer 100 years ago. Now it's the Federal Government...:tb-mad:
Gotta remember that BEECH GROVE was built to "BUILD" equip vs just maintain same. All the cars built/maintained were handled by TRANSFER TABLES vs thru-put. Also, the NYC transferred all its WEST ALBANY shop work, except LOCOs after leasing the BIG FOUR, and closing WEST ALBANY....Several of my antecedents worked at BEECH GROVE during the DEPRESSION.....regds LAB
