All,

This may be slightly off-topice, but I am on a business trip and am staying in a hotel that is the best train-watching spot I have ever seen.

I am in Indianapolis, staying at the downtown Crown Plaza hotel. The wing of the hotel that our room is on faces the west, and we have a clear view of the tracks through downtown - they are about 30 feet away, we have a clear shot for about a half mile as trains approach, and can hear the rumble as they go by.

Acccording to the map, all Indy railroads funnel through this section; actually the hotel is in the old train station.

For those of you more familiar with Indianapolis, what RR is this? Many of the trains have CSX locomotives on the front end, but there is a great variety of power. Frequency of trains is about 5 - 6 per hour!!

Wes Woodruff Orlando, FL

-- Wes Woodruff (woodruff_wes@bah.com), June 07, 2004

Answers

When I am wrong, I am wrong. I stand corrected about railroads in the Indianapolis area. I would have known better had I been a fan of the New York Central, which I have never been. That outfit and the great Pennsylvania Railroad, along with that debacle known as Penn Central and later Conrail, is the most embarassing disaster ever created by the nation's railroads. It took a Southern Railway man with some know-how, L. Stanley Crane, to put that mess back on a paying basis. As early as 1984, with Elizabeth Dole as Secretary Of Transportation, Norfolk Southern was in hearings before the Surface Transportation Board trying to buy Conrail outright, but the attempt came to naught.

-- Bill Sellers. (was2nd@charter.net), June 15, 2004.

You are looking at the former NYC main line to St Louis from Cleveland. The junction you see is IU (Indianapolis Union) commecting all of the former NYC (Big Four) lines in Indy. To the west is the major NYC hump yard at Avon, IN, an Indy suburb. This yard was formerly known as Big Four for this NYC subsidary. I'm glad to hear the hotel is still going. The station project when I left the midwest was in difficulty (1997). Contact the New Youk Central HS for more details. The Monon actually served Indy on a branch from Monon, IN. Their main line to Louisville passed well west of Indy via Greencastle.

-- Bill McCoy (bugsy451@comcast.net), June 11, 2004.

Wes: What you are probably looking at is the right-of-way of the old Chicago Indianapolis & Louisville Railroad, which was known as the Monon Railroad which ran North-South through the middle of the state of Indiana via Indianapolis, Bloomington, etc. I think the Monon eventually became a part of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad which is all CSX today.

-- Bill Sellers (was2nd@charter.net), June 07, 2004.