Editor,
To the people of Noblesville, Fishers, towns of Hamilton County, Tipton, Tipton County, Indianapolis, Marion County and the people of Indiana, the board and volunteers of the Indiana Transportation Museum would like to express our deepest gratitude to all of you for your support, including our last day at Forest Park in Noblesville.
For more than 52 years the museum has been a part of Forest Park. With our train rides, we gave classes on the history of Indiana rail transportation to school children in Noblesville and neighboring communities.
Our volunteers also learned with our community. Many adult and young teenage volunteers learned about working on our historic rail equipment, keeping it all running safely. We are proud of all our volunteers who learned at ITM, then went on to become new railroaders for Norfolk Southern, CSX and Burlington Northern railroads.
Individuals and families visited ITM and the Noblesville community from around North America and the world.
Operating our trains and seeing the incredulous faces of your children as they saw and touched a real train for the first time gave us more pleasure than we ever imagined possible.
Through the years, we had many events in Forest Park. See if you remember ITM’s Hobo Days, Ghost Train, Polar Bear Express, National Train Day, Railfan Days, FairTrain from 1983 to 2015, Dinner in the Diner, Pizza Train, Earth Festival Train, Pork Festival Train, Terror Train, Lights over Morse Reservoir, Noblesville First Friday train rides, Strawberry Festival in Noblesville and the Bunny Hop Train.
Many of you will remember our Festival 1988 off-line excursions, celebrating the 75th birthday of our Nickel Plate Road Steam Engine 587. We took the 587 to the Ohio River Tall Stacks Festival, Feast of the Hunters Moon, Mid-City Steam Special, Haines-Apperson Festival Steam Special, IU football games Steam Specials, Indianapolis to Logansport Steam Special and Indianapolis to Spencer Indiana Steam Special.
ITM and its volunteers are honored to be part of your families’ favorite memories. You will always be among our favorite memories. We will never forget serving you.
While our museum will no longer be in Noblesville, we really won’t be far away. Very soon, ITM train rides will start running again with excursions and caboose rides in north central and southern Indiana and other locations in the Midwest.
We’ve grown and are now partnering with other organizations to serve residents and visitors around Indiana and in neighboring states. We invite you to watch our website and check your local TV stations and newspapers to come ride our trains. Please stay tuned for the rebirth of our 100-year-old steam engine, the NKP 587, and ITM’s next 50 years.
Again, thank you for half a century of supporting us and allowing us to educate and serve you. ITM will not be derailed by excuses and minor claims. ITM has grown and learned from this one point of our existence. We will continue to serve Indiana communities and educate on railroad transportation commerce in Indiana.
Sincerely,
Les McConnell, chair
Indiana Transportation Museum
