| Posted by John R on April 2, 2014 | |
Excellent photo and information summary. Thanks for posting!!
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It's interesting to see the difference in the changes from then to now. The train crews wore business/office dress pants, maybe a button down shirt and tie, and dress shoes (probably polished when they reported for work), and any hat they wanted to wear. Now they can wear jeans, a comfortable shirt, but are required to wear steel toe boots, helmets, safety goggles and reflective safety vests. Those were the unregulated days, and a young man could also get a look inside the cab of any locomotive when a "nice" crew was on board, maybe a short cab ride too!
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Having recently been to Indianapolis, it is sad to see what once was an excellent rail facility so underutilized.
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To respond to Ellis Simon, the last time I was in Indianapolis the Union Station was a shopping mall. It was rather busy then, but I now understand that even the mall closed and ceased to exist. I did like the Hotel and the passenger car rooms they have on the upper level of the Station. The part that intrigued me also was the rail markings in the floor of the mall too, showing where the trains used to pull into the station at the heyday of it all. I was also impressed with the freight elevator that was strong enough and large enough to handle the RBB&B Circus elephants who used to ride in it to get to the ground floor/street level to walk to the performance arena. I agree, it's sad to see the decline of the "Golden Age" of railroads!
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When Amtrak began, the city still had fairly decent service: 6 departures daily with direct service to Columbus, Pittsburgh, New York, Cincinnati, Washington, Newport News, Louisville, Nashville, Birmingham, Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago. Unfortunately, two of the three long-distance runs that served the city - The National Limited and the Floridian - were annulled when Amtrak was forced to retrench in the late 1970s.
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