Indiana Transportation Museum told to clean up yard

ITM was ordered by Noblesville Park Officials to cleanup their yard or be evicted. See the offical news story here:

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=3104749

And whatever happened to the Indianapolis Traction Terminal that was dismantled and paid for by the Lilly Foundation to be re-erected at the Museum? but never was? Is it still rusting in piles somewhere?

The traction shed is long gone. Sometime in the 90's, the ITM Management was told that it would cost more to re-erect the steel structure than to build it new (a true statement? perhaps not). The entire structure was scrapped. The shed may however have been a victim of the many issues that plagued ITM at the time. I have to admit that Wilcox is correct about the items in the yard not being junk. It is just a sad fact that these neglected items could have been part of a bright future for ITM.

It may be of interest to note that the newspaper article is only 1/2 of the story. Don Seal, the head of Noblesville Parks is an appointed member on the Hoosier Heritage Port Authority. He was the one who spoke very unfavorly against ITM when it came to ripping up the track at Davin Switch in Riverwood to the power plant a year or two ago. He claimed that ITM had no interest in building shops off that spur or in using it. In reality, ITM and the group that is restoring the Holliday Dam in Riverwood put up a 50/50 payment on a piece of land a month before the hearing about the spur. The idea was to build shops and a storage yard to remove all the un-restored equipment away from the Park in order to clean it up. Don Seal helped block this move and now wants ITM to clean up their yard or be evicted in a move that seems very underhanded. It is in question as to whether a formal complaint was filed with ITM before Mr. Seal released the story to the news media. As Andy Rooney would say, "now you know the rest of the story".

Although it was years later, the threat finally was fulfilled. ITM's lease at Forest Park, Noblesville was not renewed, and was told to vacate. It scrambled to transfer equipment elsewhere, and scrapped some items. As far as I know, any equipment not removed from the park by the deadline date (sometime in this past summer) would become the property of the city of Noblesville. The station from Hobbs, Indiana was moved to Forest Park to serve as gift shop and dispatcher's quarters, but I do not believe that it has been moved. A significant change in the Board of Directors constituency led to the terminations of a number of volunteers from membership, including several who were well-qualified and competent crew members.

An operator was selected for tourist operations on the north part of the line, while Noblesville & Fishers want to tear out the track between these two cities. U.S. Rail has filed an application iwth the Surface Transportation Board to buy the line in accordance with federal law, and to operate freight service on it again. No word yet on any STB decision. If this happens, and if the line is connected to the rail system for freight interchange, any crews operating on any portion of the line will have to meet the stricter FRA training and supervision requirements. This point might be moot if U.S. Rail does not permit anyone but its own crews to operate on the line.