Tracks Being Removed from Street in Indiana City

The Nickel Plate Road ran down the middle of Noblesville, the county seat of Hamilton County, Indiana. These tracks are in the process of being removed.

Cross off another section of street running from a dwindling list of such places in the United States.

Workers on Monday began removing the tracks from Eighth Street on the square in downtown Noblesville, Indiana.

For decades a former Nickel Plate Road line from Indianapolis to Michigan City, Indiana, ran through Noblesville in the street between Conner and Division streets.

However, except for the occasional excursion train hosted by the Indiana Transportation Museum the tracks have gone unused.

Noblesville was the home of the ITM until June 2018 when the museum was evicted from its longtime Forest Park home.

Workers had earlier this year removed the ex-NKP rails between the southern edge of Noblesville and 96^th Street in Fishers in preparation for transforming the right of way into a hiking and biking trail. The track being removed had opened in March 1851.

Hearing Only the Wind at Arlington Street

I had to check out the recent removal of the former Erie Railroad grade crossing at Arlington Street in Akron that Steve McMullen reported on earlier.

I use to spend a good bit of time there before work or between classes at the University of Akron. There was a parking lot located between the Erie Lackawanna and the Baltimore & Ohio/Penn Central near this crossing, a natural place to spend some time and see trains of all three railroads.

My photography was in its early stages with an average camera and print film, but I thought I’d dig out a couple of oldies and do a little “then and now” of the EL Arlington Street crossing.
In the first photo above an EL westbound is laying sand for the short but steep climb to JO interlocking. Note the crossing signal. In today’s photo above little remains now other than the base for that crossing signal.

Looking west now in the photo below, this EL eastbound is only a few feet away from the crossing. Note the cement phone booth in the distance and the PC local working off to the right. In the today photo below about all that remains is that cement phone booth and one truncated EL main that hasn’t seen a train since the early 1980s.

In one final photo looking east on the EL I’m straining to hear the horns of CX99 but hearing only the wind.

Article and Photographs by Roger Durfee