The Pilot News - Ghosts of Culver’s iron horse

The Schmidt family farm near Hibbard is well known to many in the area, but more recently has become the site of a number of highly visible rail-related artifacts, thanks to Jon’s diligent collecting of all things train-related, primarily northern Indiana and especially those tied to the Vandalia line – which ran through Indianapolis north to South Bend by way of towns like Logansport, Culver, and Plymouth – and the Nickel Plate line, which ran east from Chicago through Burr Oak and Hibbard. He says he’s had occasional visits from passers-by offering money for the large items on his property, which include signal towers, whistle markers, crossing flashers, and luggage carts, to name a few.
Schmidt, who grew up on the farm and graduated from Culver Community High School, says he’s been interested in trains “from the get-go.”
“I started out collecting little stuff; I don’t know how old I was when I got my first (railroad) lantern. It took off from there and just kind of exploded,” he said.
Starting in high school in the early 1990s when he was able to drive, Schmidt began his ongoing searches for any relics of the heyday of Indiana’s rail lines that have been left behind. “Basically on winter days,” says Schmidt, looking out the window of his farm at where last winter a more barren landscape was populated by leafless trees and extended visibility due to lack of foliage and greenery.
“You drive along the (railroad) right-of-ways and find the landowner, then ask if could explore it and go hiking. Most are ok with it and say, ‘Go knock yourself out.’ If I find anything, I ask if they’d be willing to give or sell it.”
In addition to the items already mentioned, Schmidt has obtained other railroad related items large and small, which he often finds at auctions and real estate sales, besides the occasional Ebay purchase.
The larger items, he says, are sometimes a challenge to get to his home. “Sometimes people will deliver it,” he notes, telling of the day his father (Culver Community High School industrial technology instructor Tom Schmidt) called him to report the arrival of large trucks carrying train items.
Besides sharing his collection – and discussion thereof – with other collectors and the Judson museum, Schmidt has loaned items for display to organizations like the Grass Creek Lions Club, who wanted to remake their recently renovated train depot into its authentic “period” look for a days’ open house. He’s also displaying a number of items at the Center for Culver History at the Culver Public Library for a display with the Antiquarian and Historical Society of Culver there. The group is debuting a new mural of Culver’s Vandalia station and railroads at the museum in the library’s lower level.
Bob Albert’s love of trains grew out of a life lived during the last of the glory days of local railroads. A lifelong Hibbard resident, Albert – who works at Culver Academies’ warehouse – grew up living in the back of Hibbard’s general store and post office, which faced “right out on the tracks,” moving from that spot in August, 1956. Albert, as a boy, has in fact been featured in a number of the historic photos published, both in print and online, of the Nickel Plate in Hibbard, often with Hibbard station agent George Thornburg, the last station agent at that stop.
“George had been at Burr Oak,” recalls Albert. “He died three days before he retired, which was the day they closed the Hibbard depot. I learned to read and make change at a pretty early age, and George let me climb all over the train baggage reading the numbers for him… he was more than happy to let me do that!”
Obviously blessed with a memory that has facilitated an almost encyclopedic knowledge of area railroads — most specifically the Nickel Plate and Vandalia lines — it doesn’t hurt Albert that the railroad is somewhat in his blood. Albert’s father Homer lived all his life in Hibbard besides working at Culver Academy from 1916-1957 (and helping construct the present horse barn during that first year). He also worked as a freight house clerk on the railroad at Rutland, “part time, I’m sure,” says Albert, adding the “building” at which his father worked was just a “boxcar set on the ground.” The elder Albert quit the railroad following a brief, post-horse barn Academy stint, and returned to the school to work as a tent and sail maker most of his career there. Albert’s mother, Ethel, worked well into the 1970s for both the Culver and Plymouth newspapers running line type and proofreading. A brother, James Colvin, also worked for the Nickel Plate in the signal department in the 1950s and helped install the centralized traffic control dispatching system. Bob Albert adds his father also took many of the early photos of Hibbard collected today (some of these can be seen on the Culver Public Library Web site at www.culverlib.in.us).
Albert’s years on the Hibbard railroad have yielded some favorite stories. “In May of `51, I about got killed by a train,” he recalls with a smile. “Harry Winkler was the station agent… I came running from the store across from the depot (with a fast train coming). Harry saw I wasn’t going to make it, and he threw a football tackle into me and knocked me onto the platform. He was about retirement age! He got a citation from the railroad for that. It was in all the papers and the June issue of Nickel Plate Road magazine.”
Albert well remembers some of the more spectacular train wrecks in the area, including a coal train wreck in Hibbard around 1972.
Albert seems content to let Schdmit, and the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum collect larger railroad items. “I collect the photos and history. I have a lot of employee magazines and employee time tables. Those are nice for reference. I have the annual reports and some of the minutes of the meetings of the board of directors (from the Nickel Plate line),” he says, chuckling about the dullness of the content of most of those minutes, which he says he picked up at an antique shop in Ohio.
As for the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum, Albert says the organization originally formed in Peru, Ind. in the late 1950s and moved to this area around 1988, from which time he’s been involved. The group reproduced the 1908 C&O train station (the original was long gone) in North Judson as its museum, which opened in the summer of 1999. North Judson was particularly significant as former home to no less than four railroad lines, the Pennsylvania, New York Central, C&O, and Erie.
Since opening, the museum has been offering train rides on restored engines and cars from its North Judson home to English Lake and Lacrosse, and was instrumental in the town of Judson buying about 33 miles of tracks used for the rides. “I’m proud to say,” explains Albert, “that the last year CSX operated that railroad, they moved 249 cars. During the last full year the town’s owned it — the 2008 calendar year — they moved 2,764 cars.”
Part of the museum’s work involves restoring trains, which Albert says is “slow going.”
And in 2004, the museum bought the Erie right-of-way from Monterey to North Judson, a length of about 16 miles, besides owning the Monterey train depot, which Albert says is “basically sound, even though it looks terrible.”
“I can arrange a real favorable lease on that,” he smiles.
The museum, he notes, uses qualified, certified engineers, something the Federal Railroad Commission still regulates. Albert himself is a conductor.
In the meantime, keep an eye out for Bob Albert or Jon Schmidt. They may just be wandering an old railroad right-of-way near you, searching for the footprints of “the iron horse.”