On Saturday and Sunday August 17^th and 18^th, members of NARCOA rode their speeders on the tracks of the Indiana Northeastern Railroad for the second year in a row. The start on Saturday was in Indiana about a mile and a half west of Steubenville on a spur that unloads stone. You can see it from I-69 at the Ashley-Hudson exit. We had 38 motor cars and a hyrail, which headed north from Steubenville with the goal of reaching Coldwater , MI . The track was well ballasted and the rails in good shape, the railroad having just replaced 10,000 ties along this stretch. We stopped briefly at Pleasant Lake , trooped through the restored CV caboose and were off again. A one-stall engine house still stands here but it doesn’t look like it’s in use.

Next stop was Angola . A freight house still stands here and seemed in good shape. We crossed a couple of busy roads in town and were fortunate that a couple of crews from the railroad were flagging us across them. In fact, I don’t think that this trip would have been possible without some serious help from the railroad getting across the major roads. The final town in Indiana was Fremont , where a number of cars were sitting at an elevator and covered hoppers were lined up beside another building, presumably a plastics company.

Upon crossing the state line into Michigan , track condition improved to excellent, reflecting state investment. There were some significant hills to climb before we arrived at Hillsdale, where a sizeable rail presence still exists. Many cars were in the yard there and I overheard a comment that the INE is currently storing cars for their owners, doubtless a good source of income. We had a quick lunch break and then headed north. The restored depot at Jonesville is in beautiful shape, although it’s now a private residence. North of there a line heads north to the power plant at Litchfield. This is in use, but only for storing cars at the present time. The tracks turned west and headed for Quincy . I could see a spur to an agricultural customer on the north side of the track but couldn’t tell if any cars were spotted in there. A customer just outside Quincy had 3 or 4 Sante Fe covered hoppers in their spur and Quincy has a large Star of the West milling operations that had no cars spotted in this day. Track condition before Quincy was reasonable but between Quincy and Coldwater it was bad, with the rails cutting through many ties and some pretty good dips in the rail. We rode right into Coldwater this year and turned the car just past the beautifully restored passenger depot. Across the tracks was the freight depot, now an upscale restaurant!

At Hillsdale we rode around the wye to the railroad headquarters, which is in the old NYC divisional headquarters building (see link to article below). A spur from here leads to a large milling operation in Hillsdale, a steady customer for the railroad. He headed back south, tackling the sizeable hill out of town first. We arrived at the spur west of Steubenville around 9:00pm or so, having covered 122 miles. I didn’t ride on the Sunday but I understand that they explored the east-west lines in Indiana and it was as good a ride as the day before.  We couldn’t have done it without great support from the railroad so we owe them a big thanks and thanks also to Bruce Carpenter, the NARCOA coordinator.