Lost Fort Wayne

[Wayne Gest]

My picture, spring of 1976. No description needed.

[Bob Durnell]

AWESOME Picture! Like it very much. It's funny and sad at the same time that all of the times I was up on the Baker Street platforms in that era, I have ZERO recollection of the Wabash Station. It's one of those I only became aware of AFTER it was gone....

[Notch 8]

Too bad that Fort Wayne doesn't have passenger service.. Nice picture !

[rrnut282]

very interesting shot.

[Wayne Gest]

I'd forgotten I had this picture, like any old picture I come across, I always ask myself why I didn't take more. I have to be happy to treasure the ones I did take. We sure have witnessed a lot of things disappear.

[Hotbox]

Can anyone say for sure when the Wabash Passenger station was torn down?
I remember it being "up and running" back in the day, and remember seeing the stairway to nowhere years later, but can't actually fill the gap in between.
Was there any interim use between the end of passenger service and the wrecking ball?

[Wayne Gest]

At the east end of the building was an office that was for clerks and yardmasters. There was still a yardmaster there and yard jobs working around the clock on the Wabash in 1972, the yard crews reporting to a shanty that was on Fairfield Avenue on the north side of the railroad. The Defiance local also went on duty and their train was made up there. I don't know when the yardmaster and the yard jobs reporting there changed but I know when I took these pictures in 1976, it had changed and everything was being run from East Wayne.

[D.L.]

Oh my, looking up those stairs of Grand St. station-sure brings back many memories.
Thanks for the pix.