Southern Indiana
Nov. 5

Photos by Dave Ingles

The annual meeting of the Lexington Group in Transportation History, an organization of academics, railroad media people, rail historians, professional railroaders, and serious, history-minded railroad fans, for 2011 was scheduled in early November at a downtown Hilton hotel in Knoxville, Tenn., with Norfolk Southern as the host railroad (there always is one, and most years, at least one train outing). This meeting was unusual in that an adjunct excursion on the day before the meetings began was set up by NS and Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga: a one-way steam excursion up the main line to Knoxville behind TVRM's 2-8-0 630, a participant in NS's new "21st Century Steam Program." No new mileage for this writer was involved on that trip (Southern's Birmingham Special and Tennessean in 1965-66, thank you), but it was a ride not to be missed! Eventually two of my frequent traveling pals, Chuck Weinstock and Rick Moser, and I set up an itinerary for a trip of more than a week's duration.

Symbolizing sponsor NS's participation in the Lexington meeting is this November 13 photo of the juxtaposition of 2-8-0 630, back from the excursion to Alcoa, Tenn., with a short consist, and the executive F units (aka "Wick's babies") of NS Chairman Wick Moorman with the business train, which made a round trip on Nov. 12 to Asheville, NC, for the group.

On Friday, Nov. 4, I drove to Chicagoland, stopping in Highland Park, Ill., to pick up Chuck at his mother's, where he was briefly visiting. We drove to Naperville and left my van at Rick's home, and the three of us struck south in Rick's van, pretty much non-stop, for Jasper, Indiana. Our target was a rare trip on the maximum mileage possible (25) on what was Southern's branch from Huntingburg, Ind., north to the resort town of French Lick. Monon also served French Lick, from the north, but that branch is gone.

Two or three times a year, the town of Jasper runs its "Spirit of Jasper" train, with three cars it owns, to French LIck, with a long layover to allow riders to visit the local casino. Normally, only half or so of the line is covered by the regular tourist trains of the French Lick, West Baden & Southern museum, out of French Lick. (The 7-mile portion between Jasper and Huntingburg is freight-only and excepted track. Dubois County Railroad is the freight carrier.) We spent two nights at the Jasper Hampton Inn, ate dinner at two excellent local restaurants, had two days of clear weather, and enjoyed the interlude immensely.

To begin the day Saturday we photographed the Dubois County courthouse, and the excursion train parked at the station, a replica of the old Southern building on that site. The Alco S2, No. 78, was on the Michigan Southern previously. The cars are lounge 300 and baggage parlor 400, both ex-Army cars, and club coach 200, ex-MILW coach 200, which we rode. Only Chuck and I rode; Rick already had done the short train and elected to just chase our train and pick us up, saving us the long layover.

The train left at 11 a.m., and we enjoyed the fall scenery. We found it permissible to ride the back platform, including Dutch door privileges on the side.

Here is Rick during the chase to French Lick.

A highlight of the line is the 1907, 2,217-foot-long Barton Tunnel, one of very few railroad bores in Indiana. The French Lick tourist train usually runs to just south of this tunnel before pushing back north. NS (Southern) has two tunnels on its Louisville-St. Louis line, one not far west of New Albany and the other west of English. There are 2 on the old B&O Cincinnati-Vincennes-St. Louis line, and Indiana Rail Road operates thru one on the former IC Indianapolis line east pf Bloomington. Obviously, southern Indiana, like southern Illinois, is anything but flat! Our times thru the ex-SOU branch-line tunnel here were 12:43-12:45

I assume the milepost is from Evansville, Ind.; NS still runs the Huntingburg-Evansville line.

At French Lick, we pulled in at the 1907-built joint Monon-Southern depot platform at 1:06. The Alco cut away from our front end, and another museum engine, ex-Army 80-tonner No. 6, coupled to the south end for the return trip later. The ribs on the rear of the last car clearly mark this as ex-Milwaukee Road.

The steam engine visible in the photo above is 2-6-0 97, late of the Mobile & Gulf in Fayette, Alabama, which achieved fame as the last common carrier in the U.S. to use a steam locomotive regularly. No. 97 was retired on Aug. 22, 1970; the railroad was abandoned in 1984.

I stand corrected on the current name of the tourist line and the museum at French Lick. This sign by the road in front of the station says it all. The museum has quite a collection of equipment, unfortunately all apparently outside, but that allowed some photography, although the items were packed together.

PRR observation Samuel Rea is among the cars in the museum collection.

A surprise to me here was C&NW 430, its last RDC, built as an RDC3, looks like, as I recall for the New Haven, and used as a self-powered track inspection car in the 1980s and 1990s. (C&NW decades earlier owned 3 RDC's, tried Chicago-Milwaukee and then traded to C&O for some hopper cars.) I was inside the 430 once at Butler Yard in our area, but had lost track of its disposition; it has complete sleeping and kitchen facilities, and was operated as a single-cab car (i.e., no rear controls). The first view shows the observation (non-cab) end.

North of the passenger depot, surrounded by more museum items, is this building, listed as the former Monon freight house.

The Alco S4 is numbered 101; behind it is a rebuilt Geep lettered for the museum and numbered 1813. Behind the Geep is IC caboose 9422.

A great item for an Indiana rail museum is Monon caboose 81532. The open platform at right is on business car 500 "Indianapolis" lettered for the FLWB&S; south of it was an ex-IC side-window cupola caboose, unlettered.

A block from the depot is this resort / casino, the destination for most folks on the "Spirit of Jasper" trips.

Just north of downtown French Lick is the adjacent community of West Baden Springs, named for the German spa town and highlighted by the 1902 West Baden Springs Hotel. Chuck Weinstock had requested a stop there -- some early family connection, IIRC -- the evening we drove into Jasper, when I made this photo after he'd gone inside to re-look at the noted large domed atrium, the largest free-standing dome for a decade after its completion. The hotel has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974 and became a National Historic Landmark 13 years later. We could not afford to stay there :-).

With all afternoon free, we embarked on a "triangle tour" of the region, first stopping at the West Baden Springs Hotel for a daytime photo; the entrance road gate had sunlight on the "exiting" side. In the photo of the hotel, the portico entrance where i photographed Chuck leaving the evening before, is at the far left. I believe, not sure, the Monon branch to French Lick came right thru, or next to, the hotel property.

Our first stop on our Saturday afternoon scenic tour was the Orange County seat, Paoli, to the east, where I photographed the courthouse. Then it was on to Orleans, where I shot a mural downtown (note the Monon passenger F unit on it -- the shadows are from a pole and a traffic light), and the now-inactive former Monon main line at the north edge of town. Last used by Indiana Rail Road into Beford to interchange with CSX, the latter took it out of service since no on-line business remained. It had been used by MILW (then Soo and CP) on trackage rights to reach Louisville from Bedford into New Albany. The photo looks north at a pair of "blades" which probably would remain forever "red," and may be gone by now. 

Next was Mitchell, Ind.,  where B&O's Cincinnati–St. Louis line crossed Monon's main line. This view looks east from the inactive Monon track to the modern B&O depot. CSX runs very little on this portion of the old B&O between Seymour and Vincennes, Ind., and many color position light signals (CPL's) are still in place on it. The rails were kind of rusty. With such a beautiful day, it was a shame we were in a region basically without railroad action, but our mileage range in daylight hours was limited, and Rick needed to photo some of the depots.

West of Mitchell, we took a side road off U.S. 50 into Willow Valley to make this shot atop one of the former B&O main line's tunnels.

The passenger station in downtown Washington is nicely kept. B&O had a shop in the west end of town, but if anything remains of it, we did not find it.

The passenger station in downtown Washington is nicely kept. B&O had a shop in the west end of town, but if anything remains of it, we did not find it.

From Washington we went south to Petersburg, where on the south end of town we found the main yard and locomotive facility of the Indiana Southern, which operates a line southwest from Indianapolis that consists of ex-PRR and NYC track totaling 196 miles to Evansville, It now is part of the Genesee & Wyoming portfolio, and in 2013 became the new home of former Chicago & Illinois Midland's two SD18's, Nos. 60 and 61, in G&W orange and still lettered for Illinois & Midland We found these two GP40s in the ISRR's own livery parked and photographable; there was no apparent activity on the line on the weekend. From Petersburg, we went east to return to Jasper for the evening.

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