Alamo Quarry Side Loading and Dumping Train Car - San Antonio, TX USA
N 29° 29.680 W 098° 28.819
14R E 550374 N 3262904
A static display of a small steam engine pulling a side loading and dumping car behind it were once used in making Portland cement on this parcel of land now used as a shopping market in San Antonio, TX.
Waymark Code: WM13TG0
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 02/16/2021
Views: 1
Some time in the 1880s, the Alamo Cement Company was formed in order to quarry rock suitable for making into Portland cement. This Alamo Cement Company thrived for as long as the rock held out. A company town was formed named Cementville near the processing plant about 2.5 miles north of where the limestone rocks were being quarried.
A small but authentic train display of a steam engine pulling a side loading and dumping car used to haul the quarried rocks is on permanent display at the Basse Road entrance into what is now the Alamo Quarry Market, a popular shopping center in San Antonio, Texas. The land used to be known as Cementville because this was where the limestone rocks quarried from the ground some distance away was extracted and loaded into the side loading and dumping cars that were on railroad tracks connecting the quarry site with the processing site some 2.5 miles away. Early on, mules were used to pull the side loading and dumping cars from the quarry to the processing plant. By the mid-1920s through the mid-1930s, mules were replaced by this and other similar steam engines to pull the train cars filed with rocks more efficiently. The company name changed several times, as did the owners, but the land still remains. What was the rock quarry is now the Japanese Sunken Gardens and the San Antonio Zoo. What was Cementville and the cement processing plant is now the Alamo Quarry Market and San Antonio residential neighborhoods.
At the SE entrance into the Alamo Quarry Market shopping center off of Basse Road is a large traffic roundabout that helps traffic flow into and out of that part of the shopping mall. In the center of this roundabout is a display of drilling equipment formerly used to quarry the rocks. As you round the circle coming into the marketplace, this display of a steam engine pulling a side loading and dumping car is within sight to the right side parking before completing the turn to go straight on into the other stores. Peal off to the right before continuing straight to get to this train car display. Unless its Christmas time, there should be parking spaces available close to, if not in front of, this train display.
In front of the static train display is a metal sign giving facts about the steam engine and explaining the car attached is a rock hauling and dumping car. The sign reads as follows:
"STEAM ENGINE
This engine was called a "saddle back steamer" because of the position and shape of the steam boiler. The boiler was fired by coal. From the early 1920's to the early 1930's it was used to haul the side loading and dumping cars to and from the quarry and crusher. Prior to that time mules were used to pull the cars. "
Link to TSHA page on Alamo Cement Company:
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Link to WMXGW6 Drilling Equipment display:
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Link to WM13TEB Alamo Quarry Steam Engine:
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visit link)