A warm sunny August 4, 2001 saw 36 motor cars and two hi rail trucks set on the Indiana & Northeastern Railroad at Ashley, Indiana. A representative of the railroad Troy Strane gave us a job briefing after a welcome by Bruce Carpenter. About 9:20 A.M. railroad time, not local time we backed out to to the former Wabash mainline and then backed 1.75 miles to Steubenville where the connecting track sent us northward and in forward movement to Michigan. Our first stop was Pleasant Lake, Indiana where there was a restroom next to the 100-year-old depot museum. Also here was former Grand Trunk caboose 79056 owned by a retired (I think) couple. It is their weekend get away home complete with refrigerator, microwave, sink, toilet room and stainless steel counter in the kitchen. The cupola has four chairs from the Pullman Company. I believe this caboose does not go anywhere but is on a live siding.

We then headed north to Angola where the railroad flagged two crossings for us, then onto Michigan where the track from the state line to the north side of Hillsdale is class 2 and funded by the state of Michigan. At Hillsdale we took the west wye and onto lunch. After an hour stop we headed north to Jonesville where we saw a beautifully restored depot (photo above) and the seldom used Litchfield branch diverging on our right. There were many breakdowns and at this point, a MT –14 towing an M-9 had its fuel bowl assembly fall apart. The Railroad asked Jim Lindholm if he could push the two cars with his MT -19 about a ½ mile to the next crossing and he did so without incident. He had help with fellow operator’s hand pushing to start the threesome rolling. At the crossing the two cripples set off content to stay there upon our return later in the day. The railroad wanted them to see the line so the Hi-Railers on the rear towed them.

At Jonesville we turned west to Quincy and to the edge of Coldwater, Michigan. We turned at a private paved crossing and then reversed our route. Had we not lost a lot of time at various places we would have taken the east leg of the wye at Hillsdale which would have taken us by the Indiana Northeastern engine facility and Hillsdale depot. We arrived back at Ashley, Indiana about 9pm. So an end to a safe 12 hour day that ended as a night run for a few miles.

Day two we rode the former Wabash line first west to South Milford the end of track at a large grain elevator and then east to Pergo a mile outside of Montpelier, Ohio where the Indiana Northeastern does its interchange with the Norfolk Southern. On this day, Sunday, our lunch stop was at Edon, Ohio where the ice cream stand opened 15 minutes early for our crowd on this 88 degree day. At Edon was an INE train headed by a GP30 locomotive and also there was a former Detroit Toledo Shore Line GP7.