FORT WAYNE, INDIANA – The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, Inc. (FWRHS) marks the beginning of its 2015 excursion season with an inaugural trip out of Fort Wayne and news of a major donation toward making a combined railroad and riverfront attraction a reality.
Steel Dynamics has donated $15,000 toward a marketing and feasibility study for Headwaters Junction, a lauded attraction concept designated as a critical component of Phase 1 of the riverfront plan. The total cost of the $70,000 study and development work is anticipated to be covered by grants and private donations.
Headwaters Junction would prominently feature the Society’s popular attractions, annual events, programming, excursion trains, and an interpretive facility and is estimated to attract between 100-200,000 additional visitors to downtown Fort Wayne each year.
“We are very grateful to Steel Dynamics for helping us kick off the project,” said Kelly Lynch, Communications Director. “The community has steadily come to understand the worldwide appeal of the 765 and its operations. Having this train is a lot like having one of the last living dinosaurs and the Polar Express all wrapped up into one.”
SWA Group, a landscape and architecture firm, consulted with the city throughout 2014 to develop a viable riverfront plan. Early in 2015, SWA Group proclaimed that Headwaters Junction has the potential activate the neighborhood and riverfront area in an authentic and catalytic way. More information on the project is available at headwatersjunction.org.
On July 18th and 19th, historic steam locomotive No. 765 will operate two round-trips between Fort Wayne and Lafayette, Indiana in a repeat of its successful trips from 2013, which sold out in less than 2 hours. The round-trips feature a variety of accommodations aboard passenger cars from the turn of the century, including the Dover Harbor, a 1920s car complete with its own wait-staff, kitchen, and meals served throughout the day. Tickets are on sale now at fortwaynerailroad.org.
The Society has recently added additional tickets for its reincarnation of the Wabash Cannonball, a famous passenger train that operated between St. Louis, Fort Wayne, and Detroit.
The Fort Wayne trips mark the beginning of a busy year that will see No. 765 operate in Youngstown, Ohio, Allentown and Scranton, Pennsylvania, Buffalo, New York, and the Cleveland-Akron region. Passengers routinely travel from all 50 states and travel internationally to experience the vintage steam locomotive and train.
On May 13th at 6PM (EDT), tickets for steam locomotive no. 765’s first trips of the year will arrive at fortwaynerailroad.org or by phone at 1-888-718-4253.
Wabash Cannonball (July 18th and 19th) between Fort Wayne and Lafayette, Indiana
Standard Coach (Adult) – $119.00
Standard Coach (Child) – $99.00
Deluxe Coach – $149
First Class – $249
Dome Class – $349
Hollywood Beach Class – Waitlist?
Dover Harbor Class – Waitlist
Astabula Special (July 25th and 26th) between Youngstown and Ashtabula, Ohio
Standard Coach (Adult) – $99.00
Standard Coach (Child)- $79.00
Deluxe Coach – $129
First Class – $199
Dome Class – $299
Hollywood Beach Class – $299
Dover Harbor Class – Waitlist
Tickets for the Erie Limited between Buffalo and Corning New York and the Lehigh Gorge Special between Allentown and Pittston, Pennsylvania will go on sale June 1st at 9AM (EDT). Prices and additional details for these trips are forthcoming.
All trips are daily round-trips departing in the morning and returning each night and include standard coach, deluxe coach, first class, dome, and specialty classes.
Additional operations with the 765 are also being planned, including the 765’s appearance at Steamtown’s Railfest and trips to the Nicholson Viaduct in September.
Due to the locomotive’s busy summer and fall schedule, the Society’s Annual Open House is now scheduled for June 13th and 14th, allowing visitors and future passengers the opportunity to experience No. 765 up close.
FORT WAYNE, INDIANA – World-famous steam locomotive No. 765 and the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society will once again partner with Norfolk Southern Corporation to operate a series of special passenger excursions in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York as part of Norfolk Southern’s 21st Century Steam Program.
No. 765 will operate several round-trip excursions originating of Fort Wayne, Indiana; Youngstown, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; as well as Allentown and Scranton, Pennsylvania. Unless otherwise noted, the 765 will operate one round-trip per day. There are no no overnight trips.
Additional information including times, ticket prices, accommodations, boarding sites, and other details about each trip will be available on the event calendar. All excursions are round-trips operated once per day between the departure and arrival cities unless otherwise noted.
Tickets for the excursions will be available for purchase online at fortwaynerailroad.org and over the phone by calling 1-888-718-4253 this summer. Norfolk Southern employees can arrange for tickets through the company portal.
On February 4th, the City of Fort Wayne and its consultant SWA Group revealed the master plan for the 700 acres of downtown riverfront. As part of the first phase of enhancements, SWA has recommended the inclusion of Headwaters Junction, a railroad tourist attraction featuring the collection and operations of the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society (FWRHS), including historic steam locomotive no. 765.
“We believe that Headwaters Junction would be a catalyst for the riverfront and activate the entire area with the draw of this famous train. People come from all around the world to experience the 765 and now they’ll able to do it along the riverfront,” said Todd Meyer, Director of Planning and Urban Design for SWA.
The inclusion of Headwaters Junction follows several years of planning and community input, wherein Headwaters Junction was endorsed by Legacy Fort Wayne as “big, bold, and transformational.” The plan has consistently ranked highly among the community since 2011 and was recently included among the top ten riverfront improvement priorities.
Initial plans call for Headwaters Junction to include a recreated roundhouse, a once-common structure in Fort Wayne that served many of the community’s railroads. The roundhouse would be used for restoring and maintaining historic equipment and include a turntable, small railroad yard, and interpretive facility for display and exhibition, as well as a mixed use venue for private and public events. Visitors will be able to take rides, tour the facilities and participate in hands-on activities, and even operate real-life trains. Additionally, educational outreach programs targeting young adults would be offered, allowing high school students the opportunity to learn welding and preservation skills, as well as experience working on a railroad.
“The 765 and the railroad tourism industry provides a very unique kind of emotional experience for visitors and passengers. Trains are a romantic, sensory attraction,” said Kelly Lynch, Communications Director for the Railroad Historical Society. “We are thrilled that SWA and the City of Fort Wayne have recognized the potential in these incredible community assets breathing life to the riverfront.”
“For the same reason that you don’t need to be a sports fan to enjoy a night at Parkview Field, you don’t necessarily need to be a lover of history or trains to enjoy the sights, sounds, and atmosphere of Headwaters Junction,” said Lynch.
The Railroad Historical Society would utilize Headwaters Junction to expand its present operations, events, and annual programming. An adjoining railroad right-of-way would be reactivated for tourist train service with annual programming that would include events like dinner trains, the Polar Express and others throughout the year. Additional images, videos, renderings, and information are available at headwatersjunction.com.
Regional excursions behind the 765 could depart from the location at Harrison Street. The attraction would also house other historic railroad locomotives and equipment, including another steam locomotive, which are conceived to also operate on the railroad line.
Early estimates see at minimum 100,000 additional visitors downtown and an estimated economic impact of 9 million dollars from operations and out-of-town visitors each year. Comparable attractions earn anywhere from 100,00 – 400,000 visitors each year.
Total cost for the entire riverfront plan is estimated at 200 million dollars, with projections for the construction of Headwaters Junction ranging between 10-20 million depending on its final scope.
Headwaters Junction and the riverfront project as a whole will require significant public-private partnerships. As of this writing, the Society is exploring opportunities with potential corporate sponsors. In the past, the organization has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the restoration and maintenance of railroad equipment like no. 765 through donations, grants, and strategic partnerships.
Recently, the organization’s annual Santa Train operations hosted 3,500 passengers in 16 hours. The Society’s excursions behind no. 765 are often filled to capacity, with its 2013 trips out of Fort Wayne selling out in less than two hours. During the 2014 Three Rivers Festival, no. 765 brought several thousand passengers from Detroit to Fort Wayne. Among the riders were passengers from South America, England, Canada, Texas, and California.
In recent years, the 765 has been the centerpiece at events that have drawn crowds of up to 40,000 people. Currently, Norfolk Southern Corp., and the Society partner regularly to operate passenger excursions and employee appreciation trains throughout the railroad’s 22,000 mile system.
The Society plans to pursue a dedicated feasibility study for the project in 2015 and plans to announce its excursions season with no. 765 sometime this spring.
The renderings featured below are conceptual in nature and provided for conversation and illustration.
Final scope, arrangement, placement, and neighboring structures are to be determined.
Headwaters Junction, upper left, with feature a recreated roundhouse and railroad attraction with operating tourist trains and annual programming.
The start of a new year represents many things to us at the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society. Foremost, it is a season of planning as we look forward to creating a variety of memorable events and activities with our beloved steam locomotive no. 765. The time also allows us to catch our breath after another busy year and reflect on its challenges and successes. As members will read in our upcoming newsletter and the 2014 Annual Report, the work of preserving and making railroad history continues to hit its stride.
Membership is not only crucial to the ongoing preservation and business activities of the railroad historical society, but critical to demonstrating the power and significance of railroad preservation. We are showcasing an important era in American industry and innovation to an audience now 70 years removed from it.
With $150,000 committed to no. 765’s federally mandated inspection and overhaul work, our highest membership levels in decades, and important progress on new ventures, the railroad historical society continues to knuckle down, work hard, and make tremendous progress. The reach of no. 765, the work of our volunteers, and your membership are our greatest assets. This great journey continues in 2015 and we are confident you won’t want to miss a second. Will you join us this year?
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A chance to have a chat with Santa Claus in a big, red caboose while chugging down the railroad tracks continues to be one of the hottest holiday season events around Fort Wayne. For 16 years, the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society has been arranging the short trips at its headquarters on Edgerton Road in New Haven, but the society has made it a little more convenient this year. In the past, people wanting to take the trips, which last from 20 minutes to half an hour and take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the three Saturdays before Christmas, have ridden on a first-come, first-served basis.
The result was sometimes incredibly long lines and long waits.This year, though, the public was able to make reservations online for specific times, dramatically shortening lines and waiting time. The public response was strong. In just 16 hours, the society sold out all the seats on all three Saturdays, said Kelly Lynch, a member of the society.
The society did set aside about 20 tickets an hour to accommodate walk-ins without reservations. There were a handful of walk-ins who managed to grab spots in line and take the ride after a short wait.
“We still get 3,000 people in the middle of a cornfield,” Lynch said of the spot where the rides take place.There is a proposal to relocate some of the society’s engines downtown. “These are 3,000 people that could be downtown,” Lynch said.
If there’s one thing that the Santa Train has been known for – outside of being a local holiday favorite – it has to be the wait time. Last year, 3,000 passengers lined up on a first-come, first-served basis over three consecutive Saturdays. Kelly Lynch, communications director for the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, says at its most severe, the wait was about three hours.
This year, the organization introduced an online ticketing system to cut that down. Lynch says 75 tickets are sold online for each hour of operation, plus 30 to 40 tickets sold for each hour to walk-in customers. “We felt like we could control the experience a little bit better for passengers if they could select their time versus showing up whenever,” he says…It’s really important to us that people have a good experience – and that they have a pleasant experience, even with the anticipation of the train and getting on board.”…
Even at the New Haven warehouse where the locomotive is stored, and where the Santa Train takes off on a quarter-mile excursion, the organization has been able to draw attention to Headwaters Junction, Lynch’s proposal for the city’s Legacy Fund. It would be a rail-themed attraction that could connect the city’s riverfront, trails and railways together with the historic steam locomotive as a key aspect.
Lynch says the Headwaters Junction team is waiting for the riverfront master plan to be released in February before announcing anything major, but if the train is moved downtown, he says that one idea would be to push the concept of Santa Train into a larger experience as Fort Wayne’s own “Polar Express” steam locomotive rolling through downtown for the holidays.
“I think the Santa Train proves that with our limited resources, our limited track and our limited accessibility in New Haven, we’re still able to put 3,000 people on a train in 16 hours,” he says.
“There’s a tourist railroad in Connersville, Indiana, and they’re about to do 10,000 people in the next couple of days. With a few more passenger cars, a little longer route and a better location, we could easily do twice as much or three times as much as that,” he says.
“That’s 10,000 to 20,000 people downtown that may not normally be there.”
