Panoramic view of railroad roundhouse and turntable

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A panoramic view of a railroad roundhouse and its turntable shows the working heart of a steam-era rail yard, where locomotives were housed, serviced and repaired. The turntable, a large rotating platform set into the yard, let crews turn engines around so they could be backed into one of the radiating stalls of the circular building. Roundhouses were once a common feature of American railroads, and scenes like this one capture the scale of the labor, the iron and the coal smoke that kept trains moving. The wide format also lets viewers take in the full layout of tracks and buildings at once.

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