Nickel Plate Road No. 765

Design and Construction

No. 765 was built by Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio, and delivered to the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, universally known as the Nickel Plate Road, on September 8, 1944. It was one of the railroad’s S-2 class 2-8-4 “Berkshire” type locomotives, a design built for fast, heavy freight service rather than passenger glamour, with a large firebox supported by a four wheel trailing truck that let it maintain high sustained horsepower over long freight runs.

Revenue Service, 1944 to 1958

No. 765 spent its working life hauling fast freight across the Nickel Plate Road’s Midwest network, and by several accounts was a favorite of the crews who worked the Chicago to Fort Wayne run, kept in good mechanical order and stored indoors rather than left out in the weather between assignments, details that would matter a great deal to its later history. As Nickel Plate dieselized its freight fleet through the 1950s, No. 765 was set aside from road service; by 1958 it was being used briefly as a stationary steam generating boiler at the railroad’s New Haven, Indiana, shops before being placed in storage inside the East Wayne engine house.

A Deliberate Deception

When the Nickel Plate Road selected a Berkshire for donation and static display to the City of Fort Wayne in the early 1960s, shop foreman A.H. “Hap” Adang made a consequential decision. The locomotive slated for donation under the number 767 had been stored outdoors and vandalized, while No. 765, stored indoors and mechanically complete, was in far better condition. Adang had the two locomotives’ number plates swapped, so the well kept engine went to the park wearing the number 767, while the deteriorated original 767 was scrapped in 1964 under the name 765. The renumbered engine was installed on static display in Lawton Park in Fort Wayne in 1963, its true identity unknown to the public for years.

Rescue, Restoration, and Restored Identity

By 1971, a group connected to the Nickel Plate Road Historical and Technical Society began discussing whether the Lawton Park locomotive could be restored to operation, and in 1972 they formally incorporated the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society to take on the job, after the engine had spent roughly a decade exposed to the elements in the park. As volunteers disassembled the locomotive during restoration, they found components internally stamped with the number 765, confirming the number swap that had taken place more than a decade earlier and allowing the Society to restore the locomotive’s true identity when it returned to service. The restoration ran from 1975 to 1979, and when No. 765 moved under its own power again that year, the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society became the first all volunteer nonprofit organization in the country to successfully restore and operate a mainline steam locomotive.

Excursion Era

Once restored, No. 765 became a regular fixture of mainline excursion steam through the 1980s and 1990s, running fan trips over Conrail, Norfolk Southern, and CSX trackage across the Midwest and beyond. A major overhaul completed in 2005, drawing on more than 15,000 hours of volunteer labor, kept the locomotive in compliance with federal inspection requirements and in condition to continue operating at speed on modern freight railroad trackage. That overhaul positioned No. 765 for one of its most prominent modern roles: from 2011 through 2015, it served as the flagship locomotive of Norfolk Southern’s 21st Century Steam program, running excursions across company trackage in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, and Missouri, alongside sister preserved locomotives such as Norfolk and Western 611 and Southern 630.

Recent Operations and Current Status

No. 765 has continued to run excursions in the years since the 21st Century Steam program wound down, including outings on the Indiana Northeastern Railroad as part of the Indiana Rail Experience around 2022 and 2023. Its next scheduled major overhaul is set for 2031. It remains based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, owned and operated by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, and is regarded as one of the best maintained and most active mainline excursion steam locomotives still running in North America.

Recognition

No. 765’s restoration in 1979 was a landmark moment for volunteer railroad preservation nationally, as the first instance of an all volunteer nonprofit group successfully returning a mainline steam locomotive to operating condition, a model that subsequent preservation groups elsewhere in the country would go on to follow.