Re: Chama Roundhouse

The roundhouse drawing shows the opening in the back wall in stall #9 where 484 was parked as 13'-0" so I presume this is where the Friends installed the door you are refering to. A K-36 tender is about 9 feet wide so you have a generous " /> 24" clearance on each side of the opening for the shop crew to squeeze by... Does the door the Friends installed open to allow an engine to still use this stall? I am not sure if I have a photo of the engine & tender in stall #8 taken from the machine shop. The original photo shows the two engines inside but it just doesn't seem possible for a K-36 engine and tender in stall 8 as the roundhouse drawing shows the rear wall to the front wall (outside to outside) as 65'-2" at both stalls 9 and 8 which backed up into the machine shop. There was a second smaller doorway shown on the plan from the machine shop between stalls 8 and what would have been stall 7 so maybe this was enlarged? The distance on stalls 1 - 7 on the plan was 67'-0" outside to outside. The Chama roundhouse was designed for the smaller early 2-8-0 types engines and had the exhaust vents positioned so that the engines would be spotted with the pilot facing in. Probably another reason the house wouldn't have been used for a "hot" engine as I don't recall that there were roof exhaust vents on stalls 8/9 to have the engines parked with the pilot facing out... bottom line, they needed a new shop in Chama to handle the C&TS maintenance and without a turntable the through design makes much more sense. I just wish they had integrated it architecturally with the original remaining stalls 8/9 a little better.