Long before I was employed by the Yreka Western RR it has been reported that a steam locomotive was backed into the engine house to be put away for the night. Who-ever put her in there forgot to center the Johnson Bar and close the "house valves". After awhile, the brakes bled off and the residual steam in the cylinders caused the loco to move back, and throught the rear, (wooden) wall of the engine house and onto the ground! :eek"
I have seen a picture of a GN unit that came through the back of the Interbay roundhouse around 1968. I think it was an F-unit, but I am not sure.
Holes in round house walls I recall seeing evidence of mishaps at the SP San Jose roundhouse. At the end of at least one stall there was a large section of new bricks in the wall, in the middle of that, there was another, newer patch at about coupler height... Naturally, none of the newer bricks matched the originals, and some of the repair work looks as if had been perform rather hastily. Easy enough to cover the hole with boards and tarps for a while, but the remains of bricks and mortar on the pilot might get the attention of the roundhouse foreman! Like it was noted earlier, nothing like a leaky throttle, closed cylinder cocks and house valves and a reversing bar a little off center to help ventilate a roundhouse.
Fitz. Other than very small wheel stops, just a few inches tall, welded to the ends of the tracks, there is nothing to stop a loco going through the back wall. Many roundhouses and enginehouses never even had these small wheel stops. Next time you're in a roundhouse or older enginehouse, look at the concrete beyond the end of the stalls and you'll see lots of evidence, in the shape of groves in the concrete, that locos have run off the ends of track. Keep in mind, that in steam era roundhouse and enginehouses, loco usually went into the stalls smokebox first. This allowed the largest possible space and most natural light around the cylinders, the leading end of the motion and the smokebox, as this is where most of the maintenance work on a steam loco would take place. There would also be about 15 feet or more between the end of the track and the back wall, this space was to permit the drawing out of the boiler of boiler tubes. So, in North America at least, there was usually about 15 feet between the end of the stall and the wall, which gave a loco those few extra feet to stop beore hitting the wall, hence the marks in the concrete floor on many a roundhouse stall.
