History of the Nickel Plate Road | Vintage Promotional Film Series

The New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, commonly known as The Nickel Plate Road, was known for its "High Speed Service" and was the last major railroad to reach Fort Wayne, connecting it to Chicago and countless small towns along the way. Built largely on top of the Wabash & Erie Canal, Fort Wayne was a major terminal and a city which the railroad served with "quiet pride." Its railroad elevation project also dramatically changed the landscape of city development and later merged with the Wabash and Norfolk & Western Railway in 1964. Today, the Nickel Plate's former line is owned and operated by Norfolk Southern. The Nickel Plate Story, a vintage promotional film produced by the company, showcases the railroad at its height in the post-war era.

As the film states, "From Buffalo to Chicago, from Cleveland to St. Louis and Peoria, and such cities as Ashtabula, Erie, Massillon, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Zanesville, Kokomo, place names that spell America. As dyed in the wool Yankee as corn on the cob. the world cities and the hoe-down square dance on Saturday Night...Today the Nickel Plate Road is inseparably a part of the territory it serves, integrated into the pattern of its industry, its agriculture, its way of life."

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