NKP # 157

[Notch 8]

NKP 2-8-0 # 157 near Ft Wayne on the Muncie Div. taken 1939 Neg# NKPH 019

[hibbard]

NKP 157 was a 4-6-0 built for passenger service. This looks like the 457 built in 1913, class N6. The engine was in a head-on collision at Old Fort, Ohio on June 3, 1923. The engine survived to be equipped with ATS for use on the Chicago Division from 1926-1934. 457 made its last run in July 1948 and sold for scrap on November 24, 1948. Check out that quasi-snowplow pilot.

hibbard

[Wayne Gest]

Here's what I found after some searching, from the Cincinnati Enquirer of June 4, 1923. Old Fort was once Fort Seneca. Think of the crews that had to clean that up.

[rrnut282]

The second photo would have made a good "Where's dis?"
I don't recognize that water tower.

[Wayne Gest]

I think that guessing the picture is just south of Junction might be a safe guess. That visible whistle post might well be for today's Taylor Street.

[rrnut282]

Did the interurban parallel it that far North? (I think that is the interurban pole line at far right. It looks like there could be span wires between poles, but the photo gets fuzzy when blown up enough to see. )

[Howard]

The Interurban turned eastward just north of Lower Huntington Road.

[Wayne Gest]

Your point about the possibility that's the interurban is well taken. I based my guess on what I think I'm seeing in the background. Is that a large building on the left, a predecessor to Slater Steel, perhaps. The buildings on the right in the background, I don't know what they are but the entire landscape looks like it could possibly be south of Taylor Street. Yes, the whistle post influenced my guess, too. Also, if it's just a short distance south on that track that becomes today's New Castle District, I can't think of any other location south that would have looked anything like that in that time period.

OTOH, if that's the interurban, maybe it's south of Lower Huntington Road.

[rrnut282]

Wayne,

My initial thought was Baer Field, but the date on the photo is before most of the barricks and out buildings (which would have come close to the tracks) should have been constructed. For a while, I liked your location, but then recalled the divergence of the interurban.
Yoder never had a water tower. Ossian didn't have large buildings West of the LE&W track. In Bluffton, the interurban wasn't this close until just South of town.

So somewhere some assumption isn't correct. Photo date, photo location, interurban pole line, take your pick. If it's the pole line, then I could see near Taylor Street with the water tower around American Hoist and the other track the siding into Slater Steel.

[Wayne Gest]

Fascinating discussion. It's too bad we'll probably never have a resolution but I sure like seeing these old pictures.

It's always a big surprise to find a picture of a location that you're familiar with and learning, via the picture, that it looked almost nothing like what your present day self is familiar with.

[Howard]

The pole line appears to make a curve over to the photographer's location making me guess that it may be an power line paralleling the RR, leaving the possibility that this is near Junction which seems most likely with the buildings in the background.

[Steve Bryan]

It kind of looks like the area south of Taylor Street looking north except for the siding coming off the main going south on the east side of the track. All the old Sandborn maps and topo maps that I looked at show no sidings running off to the southeast of the track, only to the northeast in this area. And the mystery continues...

[cjberndt]

Maybe southbound at the whistle post for the McKinley St. crossing, which no longer exists.

LE&W had a Y-connection to ISC's street and interurban track at Taylor St., but Charlie Willer told me that LE&W also had a lead into the interurban's McKinley St. yards, which would have been at right, in the NW corner of McKinley & Covington Rd.

The building to the left of the locomotive's pilot looks like it might have the big Van Arman letters on it. The big building at left is now part of OmniSource's recycling facility.

Craig

[Hotbox]

Maybe southbound at the whistle post for the McKinley St. crossing, which no longer exists.



Craig

I think you are absolutely right on that. In the 1919 Sanborn maps the water tower (Virginia Carolina Fertilizer company) and the American Hoist looking building are perfectly placed to match this photo.

Looking at the 1938 aerial photos, they are kind of blurry, but it looks as though the building on McKinley (currently occupied by Kelly box ) might have a rail siding, too fuzzy to be certain. But the rail right of way in that area is exceptionally wide, which matches the photo as well. The three buildings in the background to the right of the tracks, also appear to be shown in the 1938 aerial, albeit further away from the tracks than I expected.