"Tidbits of Starke County History".....
Oh, that sound. What a great sound it was. You don't hear it very often anymore. I had been mowing and I noticed that a bearing was going bad on the mower. I stopped to investigate and that's when I heard it. About 3:05 Wednesday afternoon. The sound? It was a train going through Knox. Ah, you say, we hear those train horns all of the time. But, but not like this sound. This was a steam whistle. Steam whistles have this "wet" sound. This was the Nickel Plate 765 Engine going through Knox, on the old Nickel Plate tracks. It was headed to North Judson by the way of Brems, Thomaston, LaCrosse and English Lake.
I remember the old steam whistles. My folks, years ago, would take me to the Knox Nickel Plate Depot at 5:00 in the morning and we would get on the "west bound" to Chicago. We would visit the museums or some other sites in Chicago and arrive back in Knox at midnight. I still remember those steam whistles. Beautiful sounds.
The old steam whistles on locomotives were almost always activated by a pull cord (or sometimes a lever) that permitted proportional action, so that some form of "expression" could be put into the sound. Many locomotive operators would have their own style of blowing the whistle, and it was often apparent who was operating the locomotive by the sound. Modern locomotives often make use of a push-button switch, which takes away the fine control over the way the whistle is sounded. Also, the modern horns are air horns, not the "live steam" from a whistle.
As I said, this Nickel Plate 765 Engine was going to North Judson to be a guest at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum. Here is their website - http://hvrm.railfan.net/nkp/765_index.html
For more information on this 2-8-4 Berkshire steam locomotive that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, go to this site - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_Plate_765
Jim Shilling
Starke County Historical Society
http://www.starkehistory.com
http://www.scpl.lib.in.us/historical/
