The "Roundhouse", The Machine Shop and the "Car Knockers Shed"

At its peak the Red River and Gulf and the Crowell woods railroad ran as many as thirty locomotives, and the shops in this complex kept them going. Then the fleet thinned. Crowell engine #300 made its last run in December 1946, leaving only #106 and #400 in service. Steam ended at the close of 1952, because maintenance and interchange costs exceeded revenue. The line was pulled up except the stretch from Long Leaf Junction to the mill, which Crowell Long Leaf Lumber bought and which still lies in place.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Epps House: Solomon Northup's Gateway to Freedom — 15 mi
  The Creole cottage Solomon Northup helped build for the man who enslaved him, moved twice and now a small museum on the LSU Alexandria campus.
• Valentine Lake Recreation Area — 18 mi
  A 46-acre Kisatchie National Forest lake dug by Civilian Conservation Corps crews in the 1930s, with a campground and the head of the Wild Azalea Trail.
• Kent Plantation House — 21 mi
  Rapides Parish's oldest known standing building, a Creole house with a February tour and a 2023 memorial that put the enslaved first.
• Arna Bontemps African American Museum — 22 mi
  The restored Alexandria house where the Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps was born in 1902, on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

More markers nearby

• Crowell and Spencer Engine #400 — steps away
• Clyde Log Skidder — steps away
• Red River and Gulf RR Locomotive #106 — steps away
• Long Leaf Sawmill (3) — steps away