The Tender, and Wheel Shop

The Tender and Wheelshop is a L-shaped building 80 feet by 263 x 80 x 180 feet, total area 35,480 ft.². In the steam days it was used to rebuild the steam locomotives tender (the car behind the locomotive that carried its fuel and water) and the wheel shop is where they bring wheel sets from the locomotive and car departments for inspection and reshaping. The thickness of the wheels tread was measured and checked for defects and flat spots, if they had enough tread left they were machined on large lathes that could do both wheels on their axle. Axles were also checked for wear on their bearing surfaces. Rejected wheels and axles were pressed off and loaded into gondolas for scrapping. In my time there were no more locomotive tenders to overhaul, but they did use the bays for rebuilding maintenance of the way machinery such as snowplows, spreaders, ditch diggers, and cranes. I remember one time; they brought in a crane that still had a steam boiler. It was stripped down and totally rebuilt, a new diesel engine replaced the boiler, and the cab was renovated and painted. When the job was finished after six months, the switch crew, who moved equipment in and out of came to pick up the rebuilt crane, they have a hold of three flat cars and use these to reach in and couple up and pull the crane out of the shop. Unfortunately, nobody noticed that there was a shop crane mounted to one of the steel pillars of the building, and its boom was sitting foul of the crane being moved. The boom pierced through the rebuilt cab of the crane and tore it off. So they shoved the crane back into the shop, and it took another four months to rebuild it. Besides working on maintenance equipment and wheel sets, there was a toolroom in the southeast corner of the building were machinists and blacksmiths manufactured tools for the railway. They made cold chisels, spanners, rivet sets, tinsmiths hammers and other tools.

I have attached a picture from a 1913 issue of the Railway Age showing a wheel cutting lathe, that the New York Central
used in their Mott Haven Shops.