The Beech Grove Shops is a railway maintenance facility in Beech Grove,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

, outside

Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

. Beech Grove is

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's primary maintenance facility. It also contains a very large freight yard.

History

The shops were originally constructed in 1904–1908 by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis Railway (the "Big Four"), servicing a network stretching across the Midwest into

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

and

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. The facility was used as the company's repair shop for steam locomotives and passenger and freight cars. The Big Four was acquired by the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

(NYC) in 1906, but operated as an independent business until it was formally merged with its owner in 1922. The facility passed to

Penn Central Transportation The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central Railroad ...

in 1968 when the NYC merged with the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

. Penn Central declared bankruptcy in 1970. Amtrak purchased the facility from the bankrupt Penn Central in April 1975. On September 20, 2002, an

F2 tornado The Fujita scale (F-Scale; ), or Fujita–Pearson scale (FPP scale), is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official Fujita scale category is determ ...

hit the shops, damaging Coach Shop 3, which was going to be torn down after the tornado; it had been used to overhaul Superliner passenger cars until 2000. In the early hours of May 2, 2021 two storage buildings on the site were destroyed by a fire.

Gallery

File:117 and sisters.jpg, Amtrak P42 117 and sister units under repair at Amtrak Beech Grove Shops. 117's nose cone is a very dark shade of blue. File:A damaged Amtrak loco at the Beech Grove facility - P1080695.jpg, Damaged Amtrak P42 #8 at Beech Grove after a collision with a

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the ...

freight in 2007. File:Amtrak equipment.jpg, Amtrak equipment at Beech Grove shops. File:Amtrak cars undergoing HEP conversion at Beech Grove, 1980.jpg, The shops in the 1980s

References

External links

Photo tour of Beech Grove Amtrak facility
Amtrak facilities Railway buildings and structures in Indiana Railway workshops in the United States Transport infrastructure completed in 1908 Transportation buildings and structures in Marion County, Indiana 1908 establishments in Indiana {{Indiana-transport-stub