Moline Round House

[LisaT]

Does anyone have a picture that you can scan and email me of the old round house that used to be on the west side of town? It was a building they turned the engine around in.

[W. Gray]

Would you have any idea when the roundhouse was torn down?

I found this on a Santa Fe web site:

"West of the depot stood a two stall engine house where lived the Moline Helper." No photos of this "roundhouse" have been found, and it was gone by 1960. The highway turn at that location is still known as the "roundhouse corner."

That web site also has a 1983/88 track layout of the tracks through Moline and the quarry. There is also an interesting 1927 photo view of the tracks which can be enlarged, but I do not see anything that looks like a small roundhouse.

What looks like a single track going out of the picture on the left might just be leading to roundhouse corner assuming that corner was in the vicinity of the Curly Q.

http://www.atsfrr.com/resources/Sandifer/Howard/Moline/Moline.htm

I think roundhouse was in quotes because it only had two stalls.

They actually turned engines on a turntable just outside the entrance to the two stalls.

If there was no turntable, railroaders called it an engine house rather than a roundhouse. In this case they turned the locomotive by moving it to the nearest switch moving it back and forth once through the turned switch.

Prior to the roundhouse being in Moline, it was located in Howard when Howard was end of track. It was moved to Moline when Moline became "end of track" after 1886.

[sixdogsmom]

Interesting Waldo, thanks! Lisa, Ruth Walker gave a great program on the Moline railroad a couple of years back to the Musical & Literary Club. She was very well versed, and may be able to give you some info. I think your project is great!

[Ole Granny]

The Shorty Galvan family lived by the round house somewhere around the  early 50's.  Remember my Dad and I taking some rabbits and fish to them when they lived there.

[larryJ]

I have thinking about asking this question for a while now.  When I was a wee child, I seem to recall riding the train to Winfield and then taking what I remember to be something similar to a trolley car to Howard.  At least I seem to remember it was only one car.  We only rode it once or twice.  Larryj

[W. Gray]

What you describe sounds like a doodlebug which was a one car self propelled diesel or gas electric passenger car.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodlebug_(rail_car)

Let me know if this might be what you recall. I have never heard of them being on the Howard Branch but it would have been ideal for one.

[larryJ]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!. Doodlebug!  I can now remember my mom and I laughing about the name.  Thank you for clearing that up for me.  Now, as for the stop in Howard I seem to recall that there was a small station on the west side (southwest side?) maybe close to where the ice house is/was.  Any comments on that?  Again my thanks.  Larryj

[W. Gray]

In the overall scheme of things, those Doodlebugs could also carry freight and sometimes there was an unpowered Doodlebug trailing behind.

The Howard depot was in that location.

That was the second Howard depot, the first was much larger and burned to the ground around 1907, or so.

When I became aware that a lot of the old train depots were being used elsewhere, I decided to look for the Howard Depot since no one I talked to could remember anything about it.  Finally, a fellow that lives in Moline and used to work for Santa Fe with the Howard depot as his duty station said it was unceremoniously torn down.

The Moline depot wound up in Dexter, Ks as part of a private residence.

The Benson Museum has a desk from the old Howard depot and nothing else. I dont believe the Shaffer House in Moline has anything connected to the railroad. I dont recall seeing anything in the Grenola museum either.

The rails into Howard were originally destined to be narrow gauge but someone wised up and it came in as standard gauge arriving in late 1879.

Last time I was in Howard someone really cleaned up around the ice house and locker.

[Wilma]

The Doodlebug that went through our small town also carried mail and passengers.  It came through from Wichita about 6 in the morning and returned about 6 in the evening.  It wasn't a good way to get to Wichita for the day but we had a bus for that.

[jpbill]

I