(By John Carlson of the Star Press)
MUNCIE — Local railroad buffs, and there are plenty of them, will find lots to like in a new exhibit on the history of railroads hereabouts.
Found in Archives and Special Collections on the second floor of Ball State University’s Bracken Library, “Railroads of Delaware County” will run through mid-September.
“There are photos, timetables, some written histories and more,” said John B. Straw, assistant dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections, noting the exhibit is one of the larger ones to be staged there.
“I think the exhibit contains a lot of photographic history,” he continued, adding that while railroad-related equipment is well represented, it is photos detailing another aspect of the railroads that particularly appeal to him.
People.
“There are lots of people,” Straw said. “People who worked on railroads.”
Many of the photos come from the voluminous collection of the late Dick Greene, longtime columnist for The Muncie Star whose writings and pictures captured years in the life of this community.
There is plenty of railroad history here to detail, said local railroad historian Larry Campbell, noting you can trace such development here all the way back to the mule-pulled city cars of early days.
On the heels of those mules, the introduction of electricity via Union Traction expanded rail service from Muncie to Anderson, Selma, Winchester, Fort Wayne and even Cincinnati, with the right connections.
Campbell — who used to indulge his love for all things railroad-related by hanging out in the old hobo village at Sandy Banks, just south of the post office that is located today on Memorial Drive — names the railroads that operated here like familiar friends.
The Pennsylvania. The Chesapeake and Ohio. The New York Central, the Nickel Plate and the Norfolk Southern. All these and more come quickly to his mind, as does the Muncie and Western, which came into being at the behest of certain local industrialists — not to mention brothers.
“It was called the Ball Line,” Campbell said of the short, local railroad.
The people most intimately involved with railroading back then? The workers in those photos Straw admires.
“All the railroads had all their own employees,” Campbell said.
Camp cars housed these railroad maintenance-of-way workers, sometimes for months at a time, as they went about their jobs.
If it sounds like this was a busy place for railroading, it was, said fellow historian Michael Johnston.
“This was a transportation center for railroads,” he said, beginning back in the late-19th century.
It was the array of goods manufactured here that needed to be sent to market that made this so, he added. Canning jars. Wagon wheels. Buggy whips. Furniture. Lawnmowers. All this and more shipped over the rails.
“Just about everything,” is how Johnston described it.
Then, of course, came auto parts.
“The automotive side was really a predominant source of business for railroads in this area,” he said, noting it wasn’t until the 1960’s that things started backing off.
That’s not to say it’s in the dumps now, Johnston continued, citing today’s examples of the CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads.
“They’re really cash cows,” he asserted.
Exhibits like the one at Bracken Library, he said, help emphasize a truth he said needs to be shared: The railroads were largely responsible for developing this area.
That being the case, he said the Munsonians of those days had a different attitude toward trains from Munsonians of today, who grumble when biding their time behind the steering wheel at blocked railroad crossings.
Back in the old days?
“At that time,” Johnston said, “they probably went to the railroad and watched them.”
Additional Facts
If you go
What: The exhibit “Railroads of Delaware County”
Where: BSU’s Bracken Library
When: Through mid-September
Hours: The exhibit can be viewed whenever the library, which closes at 3 a.m., is open. People with questions can ask them when Archives and Special Collections is open, which is 8 a.m.-8 p.m., Monday and Tuesday, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Friday.