Steam Saturday: Getting Ready at Conneaut

Nickel Plate Road Berkshire-type No. 759 made its debut as an excursion locomotive in Conneaut on Sept. 8, 1968. Here the locomotive is getting ready to couple onto its train to head east.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Steam Saturday: NKP 759 in Conneaut

The wayback machine has landed us in Conneaut on May 4, 1969 when Nickel Plate Road  2-8-4 No. 759 powered the westbound Golden Spike Centennial Limited across the Norfolk & Western (ex-NKP) trestle.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

NKP 759 in Conneaut

Saturday was the birthday of day is Ross Rowland, who was in charge of restoring Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 759.

Bob Farkas dug out these photographs to help mark the occasion.

It is Sept. 8, 1968, in Conneaut and these images were made with a twin lens reflex camera.

NKP 759 is eastbound crossing the trestle of the former NKP mainline over Conneaut Creek.

Bob reports who does not know who the two photographers who are in front of him are.

Presented is a full frame scene and a cropped version.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

Charting the Surviving NKP Berkshire Locomotives

Former Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 No. 755 is only surviving NKP Berkshire that gets to watch a passenger train pass by twice a day.

With Nickel Plate Road Berkshire-type No. 765 in the spotlight this week on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, Ed Ribinskas decided to dip into his photo archives and create a montage of images of the six surviving NKP Berks.

The NKP acquired 80 Berkshires with the first 15 in the series being built by the American Locomotive Company. The Lima Locomotive Works built the remaining 65 engines.

NKP No. 755 has been on static display in Conneaut, Ohio, adjacent to the former New York Central passenger station, since October 1964.

Retired in April 1958, it sat in storage until being donated by the railroad to the Conneaut Historical Railroad Museum. It was recently given a new coat of paint.

In the photograph above, No. 755 is greeting the passage of Amtrak’s eastbound Lake Shore Limited, which has the Phase I heritage livery on P42DC No. 156.

You can see all of the gauges, levers and controls of the 755 just as the crew saw them in the 1950s because the cab is protected from the elements by a Plexiglas barrier.

NKP No. 757 sat for many years on display at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania near Strasburg after arriving there in 1964.

The 757 had been set aside for display in Bellevue, Ohio, but the city couldn’t afford the cost of setting up a display for it. So it went to Pennsylvania.

The two images of No. 757 below at the Pennsylvania museum were made in June 2015.

Since then the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum in Bellevue has acquired the 757 and plans to build a special shelter for it. It is shown in Bellevue in September 2019 after having arrived there last February.

NKP No. 759 is in the collection of Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The 759 was restored to operating condition in 1968 and the following year pulled the Golden Spike Centennial excursion. It also pulled other excursions in the East until October 1973.

It is shown at Steamtown in October 2015.

NKP No. 763 was in the collection of the Virginia Transportation Museum where it is shown in July 1987.

The late Jerry Jacobson acquired it in 2007 and moved it to his Age of Steam Roundhouse in Sugarcreek, Ohio, where it is shown on June 1, 2013, during an Akron Railroad Club tour.

One former NKP Berkshire is still in Lima where it was built.

NKP No. 779 was the last steam locomotive built by Lima and was released on May 13, 1949.

It is shown in Lincoln Park in Lima where it has been since 1963.

Finally, there is NKP No. 765 whose story is well known. It sat in a park in Fort Wayne, Indiana, until being restored to operating condition by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society 40 years ago.

It is shown below pulling an excursion at Avon Lake Sept. 27, 1987, back in the days of the Norfolk Southern steam program, and during moves in Ohio in 2015 on NS rails.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

NKP 757 at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

NKP 757 on display in Pennsylvania not long before it moved to Ohio.

No. 757 is back in Bellevue.

No. 759 on display at Steamtown. It was part of the original collection of Steamtown USA.

 

NKP 763 when it was on display in Roanoke, Virginia.

NKP 763 is awaiting restoration to operating condition at the Age of Steam Roundhouse.

NKP No. 779 in Lincoln Park in Lima, Ohio.

At Avon Lake, Ohio, on the former Nickel Plate Road mainline on Sept. 27, 1987.

NKP 765 charges through tiny Dorset, Ohio, in Ashtabula County on July 23, 2015, on the NS Youngstown Line en route to Youngstown.

A Nickel Plate steam locomotive crosses a trestle built by the Nickel Plate to cross the Grand River in Painesville, Ohio. The 765 was making a ferry move to Ashtabula, Ohio, in July 2015.

Visiting Railfest Weekend at Steamtown

Former Baldwin Eddystone Plant switcher No. 26 ran around pulling short excursions through the yard.

A big event here in the New Jersey/Eastern Pennsylvania area is the annual Railfest at Steamtown National Historic Site over Labor Day Weekend. It is a two-day event, featuring displays, train rides and a night photo session. This day was sunny on Saturday morning but turned to overcast skies as the day went on. Here are some highlights.

Photographs by Jack Norris

Original Lackawanna No. 426, a model SC switcher built by EMC, which predates the change to EMD.

The New York, Ontario & Western entered the diesel age in 1941 with the purchase of five GE 44 tonners. This is one of the original five.

Grand Trunk Western 4-8-2 No. 6039.

Nickel Plate Road No. 759 needs no introduction.

Lackawanna painted F-3 #663 pulled caboose rides through the yard.

Reading F-7s 902 & 903 are not owned by Steamtown but reside their when not pulling excursions for the two groups that own them.

Reading T-1 No. 2124 is one of the four T-1s that the Reading preserved for their Iron Horse Rambles. The 2124 was basically a reserve engine for the 2100, 2101 & 2102.

Nickel Plate Road 759 at Conneaut

Before Nickel Plate Road 765 was restored, there was NKP 759. Here NKP 759 is heading eastbound over the Norfolk & Western (ex-NKP) trestle in Conneaut on Sept. 8, 1968. This was her first excursion after rebuilding in 1968.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Just Being Nosey With My Camera

Erie Lackawanna No. 1245 sits at EL’s Kent Yard in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

Boston & Maine No. 1746 also sit at the EL yard in Kent. I saw several trains with B&M lashups in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The railfan on the right is Mike Ondecker.

SRS 138 sits in the EL’s Marion yard on Dec. 30, 1972.

No, it’s not Nickel Plate Rod No. 765 but NKP 759 in Conneaut on Sept. 8, 1968, where it would head its first excursion after being restored.

Not a perfect head-on shot, but Chicago, South Shore & South Bend No. 702 suns itself on a cold March 30, 1969, in Michigan City, Indiana.

It is back to Akron with Chessie Steam Special Chesapeake & Ohio No. 614 sitting at the Baltimore & Ohio engine facility on June 24,1981.

I left the United States to photograph VIA 146 in Toronto on July 4, 1981.

For safety’s sake, I rarely took nose shots, but sometimes a locomotive would be sitting still, or I would use a telephoto lens from a safe location.

Here are a few different 30-plus-year-old “noses” taken within a day’s drive radius of Akron.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

Yes, Mr. McCaleb Would Have Approved

Jim Semon’s presentation last Friday night of Willis McCaleb’s color slides of mainly Nickel Plate Road steam is on my list of the top five programs that I’ve seen at the Akron Railroad Club.

Obviously, Mr. McCaleb’s technical quality was exceptional, but his depth of detail in capturing a scene instead of just a train photo made him one of the masters of railfan photography.

How thankful those of us who saw the program can be not only for Mr. McCaleb’s slides but Jim’s interesting narrative.

As for me, capturing a scene was a rare event. I wanted a “train” photo. Still, once in a while, I was blessed with a photo that not only captured an event but a slice of history.

I was looking for a photo to put online and went to a box of black and white negatives.

I had no idea what I’d choose but found this. It is Sept. 8, 1968, and NKP 759 is heading east over the ex-NKP trestle in Conneaut.

NKP 759 is running its first excursion after being restored in Conneaut.

Steam-starved people of all ages from die-hard railfans to families with their children seeing the beauty of a live steam locomotive for the first time lined the tracks.

Down in the valley, the field was dotted with people, cars and cameras. Perhaps Mr. McCaleb would have approved of this image. I like to think so.

Article and Photographs by Robert Farkas