I recently bought a NPR Berkshire and caboose, but to be totally honest (which is rare), I don’t know a lot about that particular road. I’d very much appreciate if someone would fill me in on what part of the country it called home and a little history about it.
Thanks in advance.
Tracklayer
I don’t know a ton about it, but the Indiana Transportation Museum is just up the road and they have quite a bit of NKP equipment.
Hi Tracklayer!
It ran through Ft Wayne Indiana and their is a museum here with restored Berkshire #765 in it.
I’ll get you the website for it at www.765.org
Hope this helps.
You can email these guys for more info also.
Enjoy!
Ed
aka TheK4Kid
Thanks a lot Ed. I really appreciate your help. All I have is a one hour video showing nothing but NPR Berkshires hauling freight that I recorded off of RFD about a year ago, which is what got me interested in the first place.
Tracklayer
This page has a few good links, plus a brief history of the company:
http://nkphts.org/history.html
Also a visit to the N&W museum in Roanoke will let you view a Berkshire up close and personal.
Here is one of the photos I took last fall:
The book “The Nickel Plate Story” by John Rehor is probably your best info source for this railroad. There’s a lot of info on the Berks in it, photos, maps, history, loco roster, etc. Needless to say, it’s a big thick book. The library I work at has an original copy (written in 1964-5 right after the N&W takeover) which stays in our collection due to the fact the NKP was prominent in this area. (Brewster yard is right down the road)
I’m not sure if it’s still in print or not, but there’s at least 1 copy on ebay right now. A bit pricey at 69.99, but IMHO well worth it.
You’re asking for an awful lot here! If you’re just looking for a little basic info, definitely hunt around in the NKPHTS website, which is one of the better RR historical society sites online.
The NKP ran in NY, PA, OH, IN and Illinois, and through trackage rights into Missouri and West Virginia. The road was organized in 1888, dieselized fully in 1958, and was absorbed by the N&W in 1964. Originally built as competition for the LS&MS (later NYC), the road was bought by the NYC, later sold to the C&O, and was finally a wholly independent road in the 1940s. The Berks ran from 1932 to 1958 (with Mars lights from 1950).
Which caboose do you have? The standard NKP cab was a long wood center cupola hack. The NKP built their first steel bay window cab in 1946, but didn’t build more until 1955. Their steel center cupola cabs were originally W&LE cabooses, which the NKP inherited when they bought that road in 1949. Correct NKP caboses are available from Atlas, AMB and TCS.
Y
Hi orsonroy. Yes, I guess I am asking for more than I realized…
The caboose is a steel center cupola, like the one that you mentioned at the end of your reply.
Thanks a lot for the info you provided. I really appreciate it.
Tracklayer
I helped directly with the original 765 restoration. The NKP ran at ground level thru ft wayne eventually got elevated all the way thru. The first “official” loco across it was 767, and at the steams end they intended to donate it to the city, but because it was in an accident earlier in a collision with the wabash in New Haven, and its overall condition was poor, they decided to donate 765 and renumber it 767. 765 was recently overhauled so was in very good condition. There is/was a NKP historical society with a newsletter with all kinds of more info. I believe there is a group on yahoo you could check out. I will be modeling in a fashion the NKP along with other roads. They ran into Chicago via trackage rights into La Salle st station for passenger, and ran right next the South Shore/IC on IC tracks to get to the South Water St freight terminals virtually downtown Chicago at Randolph St. One branch ran to Michigan City and interchanged with the South Shore which I am modeling. BTW I looked and found hard on ebay for the Brass 4-6-4 with elephant ears and finally someone had…er 2!!! in Australia and I own one of them :yay:!!! 
sitting temporarily on my HOn3 module with a LL berk and roundhouse 2-8-0
I agree, Rehor’s The Nickel Plate Story is one of the best books written about a single railroad. There are more recent books, I think still in print: two volumes of Nickel Plate Road Color Photography of Willis McCaleb; and another one — also color — called Nickel Plate Passenger Trains (I forget the author’s name).
Very nice railroad to model, as long you aren’t into mountain scenery, 'cause there ain’t any. But it did have . . .
fast main line running across northern Ohio and Indiana.
Big time urban railroading in Cleveland.
Lots of long, high bridges.
Heavy traffic in fast freights hauled by Berkshires.
Great looking passenger trains hauled by “Bluebird” Alco PA’s.
I assume you read Tony Koester’s monthly column in MR, in which he routinely talks about the layout he’s constructing to reproduce a portion of the NKP St. Louis main line.
To give you a more specific idea of the NKP’s routing: from Buffalo, NY to Cleveland it runs paralell to and south of (and often in sight of) the NYC main; then, if you draw lines on a map connecting the cities of Cleveland, Bellevue, and Fostoria, OH, Fort Wayne, IN, and Chicago, you will have the approximate main line route. One of the route’s features is an “80-mile tangent” (I understand it’s actually more like 78 miles) between New Haven, IN and Arcadia, OH. The St. Louis main left this route at Fostoria, OH. There was another main route out to Peoria. There were miscellaneous branches to places like Toledo; and another collection of lines ---- originally the Wheeling & Lake Erie RR, later absorbed by NKP — running south from Cleveland and Bellevue into the coalfields of Eastern Ohio.
I could have some details wrong here as I am from the northeast and don’t have much first hand familiarity with this territory.
The NKP Historical Society solved some pretty tough technical problems when I got a brass berkshire loco, they steered me in the correct direction as to what belongs on what engine, they were immense help and know their stuff.
It kept me fed and clothed as a kid (Dad was a Signal Maintainer) and now I work for the NS mostly on what once was the NKP. [:D]
Since you are deeply involved there you would know the answers to a couple of questions that occurred to me: 1. Did NS put in the “Cloggville connection” in Cleveland they were talking about a few years ago? I guess this was supposed to reduce and perhaps even eliminate traffic on the ex NKP main out through Lakewood and Rocky River and that neck of the woods. 2. Given that NS now owns the ex-NYC route from Berea, OH to Chicago and in effect has paralell mains across northern Ohio and Indiana, how much traffic does the ex-NKP main have today?
Oh no?
The chunk of the road that was the W&LE until 1949 certainly DID have mountains on it, even if they weren’t the towering newborns of the Rockies.
And Illinois, through to Peoria in the heart of the state, and St Louis to the far west.
And Chicago; the NKP switched the steel mills on the south side as well as the Chicago Union Stockyards, which could fill anyone’s basement!
A couple more things:
I’ll see what I can find out on both questions but the info on the former “Gonerail”([:D]) route may take a while.
Teasing taken in good fun. But seriously, when I used the term “mountains” I was thinking of Colorado-like territory.
And by the way, I like your photos. Thanks for posting them
Oh, I sort of figured that you meant those “boring” spikey ridgelines out West. Too young and no character. Give me ancient mountains with all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies, and a decent water table, any day!
But in terms of the NKP, I’ll take this sort of action every 20 minutes over spectactular scenery and no train density any day!
The guy who started this thread by wanting to know some fundamentals about NKP will really enjoy your photos
That’s why I keep posting them!
