Historical Railroad Pictures, Decatur Indiana

Decatur Railroad Pictoral History. Many of these photos have been collected via the net for years now, l appreciate all who posted and made available. This has also has many photos of the Early McMillen Feed Mill, later Central Soya. Dale McMillen used to come in to Treon's Poultry next door to our gas station, Reinking Garage, that my Grandfather started in the late 1940's, he and Grandpa used to stand out front and speak German, always spoke well of Mr. Mac.. Mr. Mac would pick up turkeys next door at the poultry building, in his limo at that time, he'd have his driver load the turkey crates into the trunk, probably for feed exerimentation l'd guess at the feed mill. The video also contains photos of the Interurban that ran between Decatur and Fort Wayne, it went bankrupt in 1927, initially it ran right down the center of 2nd. St. in Decatur, backing up on Court St. then able to head back North to Fort Wayne for the return trip, later it did move it's boarding in Decatur location three blocks or so North to the corner of 2nd and Jackson Street. This includes a couple photos of the 1913 devastating flood that struck Decatur. Decatur lost the Erie Lackawanna in the mid late 70's, at that point Erie Western took over, running between Huntington and Decatur, it also ran south out of Decatur to at least Monroe Indiana, beyond that, l'm not so sure. The Erie Western shut down it's operations in the 80-81' time-frame in Decatur. Decatur at that point still had Norfolk Western running on the former Cloverleaf, Nickel Plate, until later becoming Indiana Hi-Rail still running into Ohio at that point, but then shuttering it's operations in the late 96' time-frame. All trackage with the exception of the one mile Erie segment leading back into Industrial Park on Decatur's Westside is now gone, although that segment hasn't been used for close to 3 years now. Decatur does have the Decatur Branch, CF & E from Fort Wayne leading to the Bunge Plant on Decatur's North side which handles considerable hopper and tanks back and forth from Decatur to Fort Wayne. l also included pictures of both the General Electric Plant and Decatur Casting in there hey-day, now the Casting demolished as well as 2/3rds of the GE Plant, the old, original section remains. The area where Decatur Casting was, is now available as an industrial site option for Decatur, as well as the GE as far as l know, both would have the option for rail service if the option was needed. Tree-lines remain here locally with roadbed is all that remains. If we could only bring back the Industry and Railroads that left Decatur many many years ago we'd be much better off.

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Education

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• Decatur
• Railroad
• Pictoral
• History
• Rail Transport
• Train
• Station
• Trains
• Johnny
• Cash

[TheZeke1974]

Its sad what is left in Decatur. Just a stub of a branch line down from Fort Wayne.. Everything else is gone.