The Metro Rail Maintenance Yard or "South Park Terminal" houses Buffalo Metro Rail's 26 cars in a train shed at the former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad terminal in the Cobblestone District of Buffalo, New York. The property is located at the southernmost fringe of the Central Business District. The station was built in 1917, and was designed to handle both steam trains and steam ships. The storage and maintenance facility was converted to its present condition in 1982, following the demolition of the former main terminal concourse building "headhouse" of the DL&W Terminal in 1979.
The lower level of the sheds are used to store the rail cars when they are not in use. The upper level is mostly empty space, consisting of the concrete troughs where tracks once stood and their platforms. However, some of it is used for offices, a train operators' lounge and storage.
Numerous proposals for adaptive reuse of the unused portion of the upper level of the terminal sheds have been floated publicly by various parties, including: a casino, a farmers market and loft apartments.
In 1982, an addition was built on the east end of the terminal building, which has a modern rail maintenance shop for servicing the rail fleet. This addition also contains some administrative offices.
Famous quotes containing the words rail, maintenance and/or yard:
“We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)
“He slipped his hand and ran away!
He hadn’t gone a yard when—Bang!
With open jaws, a lion sprang,
And hungrily began to eat
The boy: beginning at his feet.”
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)