TOPEKA, Kan. — The locomotive repair shops in Burlington, Iowa, have withstood shop consolidations before, the Capital-Journal reported.
Most of Burlington’s repair work is conducted in its primary erecting facility — a monstrous building standing 792 feet long and 310 feet wide.
The shops have absorbed merger after merger over the years, said David Lotz, past president of the Burlington Route Historical Society and author of a 98-page history on the Burlington shops.
“A lot of that is because of the work ethic of the people who work out there,” Lotz said. “You go into the West Burlington shops, from them being diesel shops where oil and grease is everywhere, they’re immaculate. They take that much pride in what they do. And they take in work because of that.”
At one time, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. operated seven locomotive repair shops across the country, said Lotz, who now lives in St. Louis. The only ones still in existence are in Burlington.
In 1931, the CB&Q closed its shops in Plattsmouth, Neb., and transferred the work to Burlington. In 1955, the CB&Q closed its shops in Denver, bringing more work to Burlington.
The same thing happened in 1976 and 1986, when Burlington Northern closed shops in Minneapolis and Livingston, Mont., respectively. The latter closure brought 100 workers to Burlington.
And so the possible consolidation of the shops in Topeka and Burlington, under consideration by Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Corp., is really nothing new to Burlington, Lotz said. But it is still of vital importance to Des Moines County, which has a population of 42,000.
“My opinion is that it is going to be a major blow (if the shops leave Burlington) because a lot of people are still employed there,” Lotz said.
The shops have spent many years as the city’s top employer. Quite simply, Burlington is a railroad town, and the shops are its lifeblood, Lotz said.
Burlington’s shops came online after the CB&Q built a bridge in 1868 across the Mississippi River and expanded its Iowa operations. In 1872, the company bought out the Burlington-Missouri River Railroad Co. and moved that railroad’s shops into CB&Q’s repair facility in downtown Burlington.
After the buyout, CB&Q employed 364 shop employees.
By 1879, however, the railroad sought to expand beyond downtown, where space was limited.
Because of an agreement between the city and the railroad that required CB&Q to maintain a depot and repair facility in town, the city annexed 5,000 acres west of Burlington. CB&Q built its manufacturing and repair shops there in 1883.
The shops quickly became known as the “West Burlington” shops as they spurred the development of the current town of West Burlington. In 1882, CB&Q master mechanic Joel West laid out the town so railroad employees could live close to the shops, Lotz said.
Within four years, 127 new homes were built in the town. By 1899, 70 percent of the shops’ 700 employees lived there and walked each day to work.
West Burlington was four blocks wide and eight blocks long, “so nobody in town lived more than eight blocks away from the shops,” Lotz said.
In 1916, the shops’ paint building was destroyed by a tornado. Three years later, the shops’ primary erecting building was brought online, allowing the shops to build and repair 50 locomotives per month with about 1,500 employees, Lotz said.
The shops built their last steam locomotives in 1940 and, by 1946, had revamped part of their primary erection building to conduct repairs on diesel-powered locomotives.
In 1970, the CB&Q merged with Northern Pacific Railway Co., Great Northern Railway Co. and Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway Co. to form Burlington Northern Railroad. BN merged in 1995 with Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway to form BNSF.
Current Burlington shop employment is about 380.