Boiler Shop

Standing alongside the machine shop, the boiler shop duplicates on a smaller scale its classical facades of cast-in place concrete, the side curtain walls, and the structure of steel, wood, and glass.

The 58,100-square-foot building has two aisle bays, an erecting bay, and a heavy machinery bay, which was used for the repair of locomotive steam boilers and fireboxes. Running the length of the north curtain wall, sliding bifold doors open onto a depressed concrete transfer table, 60 x 604 feet long, which provided access to the shop’s seventeen work bays. An overhead bridge crane capable of supporting a 30-ton load was used to transfer boilers and large locomotive parts. Wood pavers covered the concrete floor to dampen the noise. Steel-framed sliding doors led to the tender repair shop, cab paint shop, and flue shop, while a short track through the east end door led to the blacksmith shop. A small pivoting turntable, no longer extant, was originally used to transfer parts between the heavy machinery bay and the flue shop. Attached to the shop’s west facade is a 6,400-square-foot steel canopy on steel I-beams that was used as a firing annex for testing locomotives.

After the City of Albuquerque purchased the AT&SF Locomotive Shops complex in 2007, it contracted Los Angeles-based Eric Owen Moss Architects and the developer Samitaur Constructs in 2012 to redevelop the site. The boiler shop is currently closed to the public, but is slated to become accessible as redevelopment continues.