Locomotive Testing Laboratory and Reservoir

The Locomotive Testing Laboratory and Reservoir was built in 1912 with an addition in 1914. Together the building and its addition cost $34,270. [1] The brick building measured 117 by 42 feet, and housed a "locomotive testing plant" with "supporting wheels on which rest the drivers of the locomotive to be tested, a dynamometer to which the locomotive drawbar is attached, and which measures the tractive force exerted by the locomotive, water brakes for absorbing the power developed by the locomotive, and other auxiliary apparatus". Connected "by a spur" to the Illinois Traction System railroad tracks, the laboratory could easily exchange cars with the main rail line. The exhaust fumes generated by the running engines were evacuated through an "asbestos board duct" to a blower that forced the air through a "reinforced concrete cinder separator [that] removes the cinders and discharges the gases into the air thru a brick stack eighty feet in height". [2]