Beech Grove Shops

The Beech Grove Shops is a railway maintenance facility in Beech Grove, Indiana, outside Indianapolis. Beech Grove is Amtrak's primary maintenance facility.^[1] It also contains a very large freight yard.

Rebuilt GE P40DCs 817 and 824 at Beech Grove in 2010.

History

The shops were originally constructed in 1904–1908 by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis Railway (the "Big Four"), servicing a network stretching across the Midwest into Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The facility was used as the company's repair shop for steam locomotives and passenger and freight cars.^[1]

The Big Four was acquired by the New York Central Railroad (NYC) in 1906, but operated as an independent business until it was formally merged with its owner in 1922.^[2] The facility passed to Penn Central Transportation in 1968 when the NYC merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad. Penn Central declared bankruptcy in 1970.^[1] Amtrak purchased the facility from the bankrupt Penn Central in April 1975.^[3][4][5]

On September 20, 2002, an F2 tornado hit the shops, damaging Coach Shop 3, which was going to be torn down after the tornado; it had been used to overhaul Superliner passenger cars until 2000.^{[citation needed]}

In the early hours of May 2, 2021, two storage buildings on the site were destroyed by a fire.^[6]

Gallery

• 
  Amtrak P42's under repair at Beech Grove
• 
  Damaged Amtrak P42 #8 at Beech Grove after a collision with a Norfolk Southern freight in 2007.
• 
  Amtrak equipment at Beech Grove shops.
• 
  The shops in the 1980s