The Lehigh Valley Railroad Comes to Sayre

The Lehigh Valley Railroad Comes to Sayre. . , The Lehigh Valley Railroad reached Sayre, Pennsylvania, in the 1870s growing its huge complex (Image No. 1) to include eventually 250 acres of land with 21 major buildings and 80 miles of tracks between Sayre's southern border with Athens, Pennsylvania, and its northern border with Waverly, New York. In the center of this expanse were the huge facilities of the various mechanical shops, train yards, a roundhouse, the 1881 passenger station, a division office building, and various auxiliary buildings, all in use for the building, repairing, maintaining, and operating the popular and prosperous railroad. , Record-setting in Sayre was the massive Locomotive Shops (Images No. 2 and 3) at 283,140 square feet of space, over 6 acres under one roof. On completion in 1904, it was the second largest locomotive shop in the world. During its tenure of building coal-burning steam locomotives, 277 of these huge, engineering marvels were built here in Sayre by a force of several thousand workers at times. The gigantic Locomotive Shops, frequently called the Big Shops, were organized into several bays according to the type of work being done in building or rebuilding locomotives. Images No. 2 and No. 3 show the interiors of the West Bay and the East Bay. Other shops built cabooses, boxcars, milk cars, flatcars, and related items. As the prosperity of the Lehigh Valley Railroad declined and finally ended, so did the need for the Sayre shops. In 1987 and 1988 the Locomotive Shops were demolished along with other buildings. Nearby the Locomotive Shops was Sayre's Round House. It had stalls for servicing or storing up to 50 steam locomotives. Included was a turntable to allow locomotives to be turned around. It was demolished in 1951. , Image No. 4 shows a typical work crew in the Locomotive Shops where the absence of the skin on the locomotive shows the asbestos bricks lining a steam boiler to hold in heat. , Image No. 5 is from 1948 when the coal pocket just north of the 1896-built Footbridge was on fire. The coal pocket was for onsite storage of coal for loading into the tender (coal car) behind a steam engine. The coal then was shoveled by hand into the engine's furnace by a crewmember (fireman), heating the water in the boiler thus creating the steam power to run the locomotive pulling the train. The Sayre Fire Department was able to extinguish the stubborn fire and save the 75-foot-high structure while many spectators lined the Footbridge. , Image No. 6 is indicative of the demise of the Lehigh Valley Railroad in Sayre. The demolition of both 200-foot-high smokestacks of the Power House took place on April 14, 1977. The Power House, with 16 coal-fired boilers powering four huge generators, had been essential to the operations of the LVRR in Sayre. At times 187,000 tons of coal were burned daily. The resulting electricity, steam, heat, and compressed air were provided for all the Lehigh's facilities in Sayre. The 9 p.m. steam-powered whistle of the Power House was used as a curfew by generations of parents who directed their children, "Be home by the 9 o'clock whistle." , (For the rest of the story visit the Sayre Historical Society Museum.).