Rode through Indio on my bike last weekend and was surprised to see that the Southern Pacific's old enginehouse was still standing. So I rode back down there with my camera today (Jan 31, '10) and took a few pictures.
This is the entire structure as seen from just off Hwy 111 looking north west.
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This is where I parked the bike to take the first photo: right next to an abandoned flatcar loading ramp in the middle of what used to be the S.P.'s Indio yards.
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Some detail for anyone who'd like to model a prototypical loading ramp. It's built of structural steel shapes and poured concrete. I suspect it's still there only because it would take a small nuke to move it.
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The coupler pad is made of 1/2" sheet steel backed with perhaps two dozen sheets of 1/2" plywood. The steel has been bent, and the plywood crushed over the decades.
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Enginehouse as seen from the south west. Note there are four run- through bays capable of housing two cab-forwards in each one.
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Abandoned enginehouse interior. Of interest are the arched brick floors (worth a mint these days) that promoted drainage from leaky steam engines, the filled-in drain troughs that sit just outside the railheads, the similarly filled-in service pits that were once between the rails, and the black/white paint that was once on the structural uprights: presumably to keep workers from walking into them.
If you look closely at the right hand side of the picture you can also see the rotted remains of the wooden louvers that once ran between the uprights and passed for enginehouse walls. (Summer temperatures in Indio are frequently well above 100 degrees, so rather than use real walls the S.P. filled the places where they would normally go with overlapping 1' wooden louvers that shaded the work area while still allowing the passage of fresh air and the escape of the hot air and fumes that came along with occupancy by multiple steam locomotives.)
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Even the roof was made of prestressed and steel-reinforced concrete! Why? Because the San Andreas fault lies only a couple of miles north of the enginehouse, and the ever-generous S.P. didn't want the whole thing falling on the shop workers -and the very expensive steam locomotives inside- in case the Big One hit.
Note the cast-in holes that were originally there for the now long- gone smokejacks. Note also the fifty-year-old remains of steam engine smoke stains on the underside of the roof. West is to the left in this picture, and the prevailing west winds in Indio blew through the louvers and would have pushed the smoke to the right of the picture which explains why the stains are mainly to the left side of the old smokejack's locations.
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Just west of the enginehouse, the foundations of the old 60,000 gallon water tank till stand. Note that someone has driven into one of the old concrete footing blocks and snapped it in half!
This would likely have had interesting side-effects if the water tank had still been there -and full- at the time.
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I also managed to locate the old footings for the water tank at Garnet (just west of Palm Springs) on my way back home. The sand dunes have about half-covered the remains.
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"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
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Steam is long gone, but traces yet remain for those who would search them out.
~Pete