BELLEVUE, Ohio — The train’s warning whistle cut through the air about halfway through my visit. I had been wandering between the hulking, retired locomotives at the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum, but suddenly found myself running toward the active-use train tracks that cut through the property.
Trackside, I stood and watched: From locomotive to caboose, I recorded 14 minutes of train car after train car sliding out of view.
Fifty or more trains like this one run through Bellevue daily, according to Dwayne Fuehring, the vice president of the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum. The trains carry just about everything, from products ready for supermarket and department store shelves to raw materials, such as steel, lumber, and coal. And they’re a living, chugging reminder of regional and national history.
“We always gotta remember where we came from,” Mr. Fuehring said. “The railroads were such a vital part of building the country. And they were also a vital part during wartime.”
Bellevue is a historic railroad hub. It was one of the first places to get rail service in Ohio. During World War II, the Nickel Plate Railroad was one of the “biggest, busiest” wartime traffic handlers, Mr. Fuehring said, shuttling defense equipment and economic goods through the region.
“We had such a large hub here in Bellevue that you couldn’t go into a restaurant without half the people being railroad employees,” he continued.
This made Bellevue a prime location for the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum, which opened in 1976. Its name honors the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, which was the first chartered in Ohio, and the Nickel Plate Railroad, which made Bellevue central to its operations.
“A lot of the pieces that we have here are pieces that people in this town used,” Mr. Fuehring said. “There’s quite a few of them that are still alive. So it’s kind of a monument to their efforts in this town.”
The Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum — and even its labor-intensive restoration projects — are run entirely by volunteers, a crew that includes old-timers who helped develop the museum, locals with civic pride, and railroad enthusiasts.
Dale Owens estimated that he’s been volunteering “probably 25 years.” His father worked for the railroad.
“I just like trains,” he said. “I started off in model railroading … so I joined to learn more about the designs.”
The museum maintains several restored buildings, including a depot, watchman’s tower, and a section house that were used by railways in the region. Other structures include an outhouse — non-operational, though bathrooms are available through the gift shop and to the left — and a phone booth.
Through the gift shop entrance, Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train bell rests in a glass case. One-third of settled America’s population heard it ringing as crowds gathered to watch the 16th president’s funeral train pass by on its serpentine route from Washington to Springfield, Ill., in 1865.
A green wood and plaster model of the Sandusky, the first locomotive operated by the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, also greets visitors.
And, of course, there are the trains.
“I think my favorite here is the 757,” Mr. Fuehring said.
The 757 was a fast-freight steam locomotive constructed by the Lima Locomotive Works in 1944. Its home terminal was Bellevue, and it was to retire in the town in 1958. But with no display site available at the time, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania ended up housing the locomotive until 2019, when the 757 returned home to Bellevue.
“After all those years,” Mr. Fuehring said, “a locomotive that was supposed to be here all along finally made it back to the city.” It has been restored and is currently displayed across the tracks from the main museum.
The museum houses America’s first dome passenger car, a General Motors innovation from 1945.
The strange curves of a steam-operated snowplow built in 1943 also catch the eye, especially when juxtaposed against its otherwise boxy shape. It’s impossible not to imagine the 42.5-ton locomotive in action. The same goes for a 200-ton capacity train built in 1923 that sits nearby.
And plenty of day coaches, hoppers, switchers, cabooses, dining cars, and boxcars are available for viewing and, often, exploration.
“A lot of places have everything roped off and you can’t really get into things,” Mr. Fuehring said. “We’ve made the interiors of a lot of our equipment the display area … It’s not something that’s very common.”
Displays include cutlery and dining ware from railroads that operated in the region, explanations and examples of railway communication techniques, sets of tools used to build and maintain railroads (including an extraordinarily large wrench), photographs, and more. Some railcars are furnished to show what a dining, postal service, or sleeper car might have looked like.
Also unusual is the mainline, class I railroad that runs through the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum.
A gorgeous garden — one museum volunteer’s “pride and joy,” according to Mr. Fuehring — and covered picnic area accommodate those inclined to sit and watch the trains amble by.
But more likely, the mystique of a rolling locomotive will bring spectators to their feet, drawing them as near to the tracks as common sense and humbled awe allow. Then they marvel until the train’s caboose has disappeared around the bend.
First Published September 3, 2022, 12:00 p.m.
