Illinois Central Railroad Scrapbook

Happy 89th Birthday, Paducah Shops! (a day late but better than never, right?).

On September 1, 1927, the IC's new shop complex in Paducah, KY, quietly opened for business. The new shop replaced an older shop complex built in 1883-84 by the Chesapeake Ohio & Southwestern Railroad. The IC acquired ownership of the CO&SW in 1896 and expanded the Paducah shops several times over the years.

However, the shops could not accommodate the 2-10-2's and 4-8-2's that the IC had begun buying in the 1920's. On January 15, 1925, plans for a new shop complex were publicly announced. Construction officially began on March 10, 1925.

Surprisingly, there was no grand gala or celebration when the shops opened. The local newspapers carried small paragraph's about the shops' opening and didn't even run a photo!

I could find only one photograph taken around the time of the shops' completion, and it was this shot taken on February 10, 1927, as construction on the locomotive shop/machine shop building was winding down. 2-10-2 2952 was brought into the shop and attached to the 250-ton overhead crane and carried the length of the erecting shop. The test was successful and over the years the crane has lifted countless locomotives.