Radville is located beside Long Creek, which drains about 500 square miles to the west and north. A fairly reliable water source though seasonal was sufficient for the Canadian Northern Railway to select that area for a site to build a repair shop between Strathcona (Winnipeg, Manitoba) and Lethbridge, Alberta.

Repair shops were called roundhouses because of their configuration, an arc with boiler room and milling equipment rooms continuing the arc profile.

Equipment needing repair or housing approached the building from inside the arc, drove onto a turntable which selected one of the sets of rails that led into the various stalls.

All equipment was run by steam powered engines such as: a water pump from a dammed Long Creek to the water tower, an elevator to hoist coal to a hopper bottom overhead bin, a turntable, coal transfer to boiler room within the roundhouse, milling machinery, etc. Heat from the boiler room was also used to heat the depot and two company houses hundreds of yards away through underground pipes.