Locomotive Testing Laboratory and Reservoir / Aeronautical Laboratory and Brake-shoe Testing Laboratory

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] and were built to house the University's new railroad car and its associated testing facilities. [2] Designed by W. Zimmerman, [3] 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". [4]

Known as the Aeronautical Laboratory by 1948, [5] today the building is largely used by the physics department for storage. [6]

The Brake-shoe Testing Laboratory was immediately to the west of the Testing Laboratory and facilitated more specialized testing. [7] By the 1960's it was known as the Railway Wheel Laboratory. [8]