Nickel Plate Road's Legendary Speed | Fast, Reliable, and Berkshires | History in the Dark

The New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad, which everyone calls the Nickel Plate Road, began life as a thorn in the side of some of the wealthiest tycoons in the industry. Though the line was handicapped early on, it would eventually be released from this and rise to be one of the midwest's most well-known railways.
0:00 - Intro
1:13 - Formation
12:36 - Freedom
17:56 - Berkshires
21:09 - The End
"The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (reporting mark NKP), abbreviated NYC&St.L, was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. Commonly referred to as the "Nickel Plate Road", the railroad served parts of the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Its primary connections occurred in Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Toledo."
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#history #truestory #documentary

[@kylegarlinger4178]

As an Indiana resident, I’d like to point out it’s pronounced wah•bash. Wah like fake crying and bash like a party.

[@Piedog769]

I watch these in part to hear how he mispronounces names like him pronouncing should (Gewld) as “Gold”. Maybe it’s a ploy for more view; I don’t know but I keep watching. Lol

[@michigandon]

@@Piedog769 Like you, I'm beginning to think he does it on purpose. I wanna reach through the screen and choke him every time he says "StudeBACHer"!

[@aaronberger3257]

And its Ash tuh bue la. Not Az tab uh la.

[@berniemarkley]

As in the song "The Wabash Cannonball"

[@danielsacks7152]

Thanks for clarifying that for everyone. I was struggling to figure out how to spell it phonetically for him! Another Indiana location often mispronounced is Wawasee. Of course, Hoosiers also pronounce Vevay as Veevee and Versailles as versails.

[@harrisonallen651]

Nickel Plate being a much more favourable name rather than The New York, Chicago and St Louis Railroad is quite naturally surprising

[@Ohiotrucker1]

The wabash were also known for fast service you might want to check them out.

[@kcamera4975]

The Nickel Plate ran right by my house when I was a kid. The rattling of the house and the whistle would put me to sleep at night. And mystery solved - I now know why the line had two names 👍

[@danhoyland142]

I was a track laborer out of college because of the 08-09 Great Recession. I worked for a contractor and laid 3/8 to 1/2 mile of track a day, 10 days on, 4 days off. Grueling work, I can’t picture how their mainline from Buffalo to Chicago was done so shortly. There must of been 1000s of laborers working round the clock to pull that off and without any of the equipment to make their jobs easier that we had. Insane.

[@keithstudly6071]

Much of the route was already existing Lake Erie & Western track. New construction was largely the route from Cleveland to Buffalo.

[@Callie83]

Ran right through my hometown and rattled everything in my house when I was a kid. Now the NPL is a well-traveled bike path.

[@neohistoryfan1014]

One of my favorite RRs! I have a book about Cleveland's railroads, which mentions that the NKP used steam through 1962 or 63 (probably in yard and local service after the mainline ones were retired). i'm actually considering the NKP's mainline from Buffalo to Bellevue, Ohio set in the late 50s as a TSW3 route. The equipment will include all freight cars from circa mid-20s to 1957 and all NKP passenger cars for rolling stock; H, S, L and B/C/U steam locomotives; ALCO PAs, RS3s, RS11s, S1/2/4s, EMD GP7/9s, SD9s, NW2s, SW1/8/9s, Baldwin AS16s and Fairbanks-Morse H10/12-44s for diesels.

[@dustyvidito]

Your railroad history videos are your best ones. I’d like to see some roads from other countries, like Germany and Australia

[@harrisonallen651]

Australia I’d love to see

[@True_NOON]

Tbh in europe its either tiny railways in like the 1840s known by few local people, or ones that made mainlines , and past 1900 just {split in 2} {merged back}

[@fanofeverything30465]

I'd like to see one from Australia as well

[@douglasengle2704]

I didn't understand the fascination with the Nickel Plate 765 Berkshire 2-8-4 till this video because it has a single axle leading truck marking it as a slower freight locomotive, it is under 3,000 hp ( NKP 2,754 cylinder hp) where fast passenger locomotives in the Northern 4-8-4 class have a double axle leading truck, are close 5,000 hp with a passenger train top speed significantly over 100 mph. Now I do, because the Berkshire 2-8-4 was a fast efficient coal steam freight locomotive and this video reveals the Nickel Plate was known for its very good fast freight. NKP Berkshires were also used on the Nickel Plate trackage which was greatly straight with mild curves so its lack of double axle steering front truck on many lines may not come into play. The continual straitness of NKP trackage near the great lakes is legendary and still used today. The main reason I'd never understood the fascination with the Berkshire 2-8-4 was we'd had the C&O 614 4-8-4 Greenbrier pull the fall foliage New River Gorge train in the mid 1980s when I was attending WV Tech Montgomery WV. The general classification for a Greenbrier 4-8-4 is a Northern 4-8-4. Ross Rowland says he's had the C&O 614 at 120+ mph pulling cars. I'd seen it pull over 30 fully loaded coal cars up the grade of the New River Gorge by itself. The C&O 614 4-8-4 would lead a unit coal train of empties, about 1-1/8 miles long, down the New River Gorge grade. To me it was a big disappointment when the fall foliage WV New River Gorge train switched to using a freight steam locomotive the Nickel Plate Berkshire 765 2-8-4 over the fast passenger locomotive the Greenbrier C&O 614 4-8-4. The C&O 614 4-8-4 is way over 50% faster and can have almost double the horsepower of the Berkshire 2-8-4. The Greenbrier 614 pulled 18 passenger cars up the New River Gorge grade or more when I saw it. It was problem in the wet because of wheel slip, but Ross Rowland always wanted to show what it could do. The Berkshire had to have the assist from at least one Diesel. There was one very cold day near 0°F in Montgomery WV when I was watching the railroad going to class and the C&O 614 was given a red signal to stop on the up grade at the west end of Montgomery. I couldn't believe the railroad had ordered a steam locomotive to stop up grade in a major town with a full load of coal cars behind it. A steam locomotive when starting can be hard to keep from black smoking. That steam locomotive engineer wasn't going to black smoke Montgomery. When the C&O 614 started with about 35 fully loaded coal cars up the grade in 0°F temperature it through up a steam jet 100s of feet into the air! That steam in the 0°F temperature exploded into rapidly expanding clouds of visible water vapor spreading out all over the valley sky. I called it the town humidifier. Five minutes later I looked up near the mountain ridge about 1,000 feet up and that visible cloud had expanded to fill much of the upper sky. It was otherwise a winter crystal blue sky January day with white snow covered land. Black smoke would have been horrible photo possibility for Ross Rowlands clean coal promotion. It's the Berkshire that is the locomotive used in the Polar Express Christmas story. To rail fans it seems like a mistake of the cartoon animators where they likely really meant to use a Northern 4-8-4 not a Berkshire 2-8-4 because the single axle leading truck means it is for slower freight service not fast passenger trains, but it was actually seeing that Berkshire on display while attending college that went a long way to inspiring the author to write the Polar Express story. That's the reason given for why a Berkshire was the intended steam locomotive in the animated movie. A freight steam locomotive should reasonably keep as much weight on its drivers as possible which means not shifting weight on to the leading truck. The leading single axle truck is acting as an up and down bump stop stabilizer rather than providing steering guidance into curves. Passenger steam locomotives don't need the extreme starting tractive effort freight locomotives make use of every time they start a long freight. Fast passenger steam locomotives place weight on their double axle leading trucks to guide them into high speed curves. This is not just for passenger steam locomotives, but takes place for fast freight steam locomotives such as the 4-6-6-4 Challenger and 4-8-8-4 Big Boy. Those fast freight steam locomotives were also intended to be able to pull passenger trains if needed and did during WW2.

[@gtwfan52]

The Polar Express locomotive was Pere Marquette 1225. PM later became the Chessie's Michigan Lines. A different engine of the same class (1223, I believe) was rescued from static display on Michigan State University's campus and completely restored and renumbered 1225 by the Steam Rail Institute. It runs excursions around Christmas every year on a north-south freight only line in Michigan.

[@douglasengle2704]

@@gtwfan52 Thanks for clearing that up. I was never a huge fan of the Berkshire because it meant we wouldn't be getting the high speed passenger steam locomotive the C&O Greenbrier 614 4-8-4 for the New River fall foliage train. After hearing the story of how the author of Polar Express, having watched the Berkshire on display many days when going to college and it encouraged him to write the Polar Express, I'm much more affectionate towards it. Its only about half the horsepower of a top Northern 4-8-4 which easily pull passenger trains over 100 mph.

[@derikledford544]

A lot of the railroad bridges in Cleveland still say nickel plate road on them.

[@TheBrandon40500]

One of my favorite railroads, I got a nice HO scale NKP diesel collection of GP7's, SD9's and RS3's just recently finally found a new atlas NE6 NKP caboose after a 20+ year search. Thank you for posting this video. I dont comment much but i watch almost every video you make im a big fan of you're channel. Again thank you for the great content you spew out so regularly!

[@robertwilloughby8050]

The Reading would be great!

[@therectorrailroad2716]

Great video, could you cover the Louisville & Nashville railroad?

[@NotGavin]

Absolutely love these railroad history videos, would love to see the B&M or MEC at some point!

[@efrenhinojosa4084]

MoPac in the future.😊 Loved the vid.

[@williamh.jarvis6795]

Wondering what the future would have been like if the MoPac and the Southern Railroad ever finalized a proposed merger, back before the Union Pacific Railroad absorbed it. There were talks about it!

[@Patrick_3751]

Something extremely important to keep in mind is that the tests that revealed the supposedly marginal savings of diesels over the Berkshires was extremely controversial at the time and the results may not have been accurate. I recall reading an article about the NKP's last order of berkshires in Classic Trains magazine many years ago which mentioned an interesting incident after the N&W merger. Supposedly an N&W official found corporate documents in one of NKP's offices approving the purchase of their final berkshires BEFORE the tests were conducted, which suggests that the railroad executives had long made up their mind and may have fudged the test results to justify their decision!

[@DrRacer78]

I think the Pennsylvania Railroad should be next because I think it's long overdue that you talk about the Railroad that produced your favorite locomotive ever Darkness.

[@ForrestLambert.2022]

If you have done any videos on the C&O you need too. Guess it was one of the best railroads in the northeast from what i heard when i worked for a railroad in MA.

[@gtwfan52]

The C&O didn't run in the NE. It ran more or less from Virginia to Chicago. One of its successors, the Chessie System did reach the NE.

[@Marc_von_Hoffrichter]

Great video mate, Thanks for sharing, cheers mate.

[@nilo9456]

A Nickel Plate track bordered our farm, First RR Co. I was aware of as a kid.

[@joelchristensen9503]

Really neat history! Great video!

[@mike6206]

Great video! Would you consider a documentary on The Western Maryland Railroad?

[@FreihEitner]

Good history lesson. Thank you for this.

[@harmab2]

My personal favorite rail road ❤! Thank You ❤!!

[@larkinproductions971]

Thanks for this video. Full of information. Plus I’m a fan of the nickel plate road

[@HoosierDaddy_]

To this day I like to stand on the NP tracks and imagine traveling on them. If I go east, I get to New York. If I go west, I go to St. Louis. That would be a great trip!

[@bradleybarry3426]

Im aware of the Astabula Bridge Collapse, I watch a documentery on it not too long ago. It was a sad time for all. However, to prevent my fellow Ohioians from spamming your inbox, I feel the need to say it is pronounced Ash-ta-bU-la. Still appreciate your content anyways.

[@OKFrax-ys2op]

Exactly

[@frankdemski7242]

A great story. I like that history. It is amazing to learn something about Nickel Plate. Thanks for that interesting video.

[@Doll.The.Solver]

I love this video, it’s amazing, and the nickel plate railroad was amazing, live live the nickel plate railroad 🤩😍

[@jwrailve3615]

My first two dcc units were KPR, 8100 and a geep30. Please do gulf coast lines! Love these mini docs

[@TheBrandon40500]

Be cool if he made one on the GM&O

[@jwrailve3615]

@@TheBrandon40500 I’d take any railroad from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico honestly. Especially the logging lines in east Texas like the Camden and augustine that ran steam til the late 60’s

[@lizshoemaker6569]

I work for a company that sprays the railroad, and they TRRA still has a section called the Nickle plate in st Louis, crazy how they have all broke up and restructured and rebuilt and reuse the same lines

[@DoubleSpikeProductions]

I would agree with the other comments. Very nice video! Would love to see one done about the Wabash!

[@ekrwy2]

Need to do one on the Timken Four Aces! Nice job on the Nickel Plate

[@JPOGers]

My dad and his (my) extended family were originally from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Nickel Plate was EVERYWHERE in northern Indiana

[@randombread7535]

please do a video on the grand trunk western

[@gtwfan52]

My favorite railroad. I was lucky enough growing up to have a summer home in an old railroad resort on a lake near Kalamazoo. The GTW was in my backyard. In the winter, the place I lived was right across the street from the NKP in NW Indiana. No wonder I'm still a train fan at 68.

[@iBackshift]

Mint documentary. Entertaining and informative. DTC, look up the "Halifax Explosion" for fun. Do a doc on that one.

[@buckyc.9069]

NKP's philosophy meshed perfectly with that of N&W. Some of the last steam holdouts.

[@AlfredPeeler-yj6sw]

Good video. Would you consider doing a story on theNC&St.L?

[@intercityrailpal]

Lots of Lehigh Valley movies and New York Central here.

[@TheGs4_4449]

EMD: Buy our diesels! Nickel Plate Road: *We do not care.*

[@oldclip70]

Please read The Nickel Plate Story. They tested their F-2’s or 3’s. Nickel Plate Road: our 2-8-4’s just kicked your a**. EMD: I know who to call. Lackawanna: Buy those diesels or else!!! (Lackawanna had substantial stock of the Nickel Plate. That why NKP and secret talks with N&W about taking them over. It was so secretive, officials had aliases .)

[@TheGs4_4449]

@@oldclip70 My bad. Thanks for the correction!

[@oldclip70]

@@TheGs4_4449, no problem!! When I read about it, I was in shock too.

[@TheGs4_4449]

@@oldclip70 Should I change the comment to be accurate, or leave it be?

[@oldclip70]

@@TheGs4_4449, na…when people corrected me, I thanked them for the information. We all learn. It makes us sharper and better.

[@TheBrandon40500]

Could you possibly do a short doc on the Peabody coal railroad? Nobody ever talks about it,it was a very short lived railroad only around for maybe 2 years but it has always been fascinating to me idk why it just is. Just a thought.

[@buckyc.9069]

Norfolk and Western had a penchant for acquiring well engineered and successful lines. Wabash, Nickel Plate, and Virginian.

[@kylben]

"WahBAHSH"? You ain't from the midwest, are you? "WAWbash"

[@nilo9456]

What kylben says

[@jaxonklee8063]

In my home town of ELWOOD Indiana there was the NKP Nickel Plate Road PRR Pennsylvania Rail Road and I think NYC New York Central there may be more but I just started researching on this topic over the past few days

[@Master-of-None]

OMG dude you could not have axe murdered Ashtabula's name any worse. Hahahah

[@HistoryintheDark]

I am known for several things. British Rail PTSD. Bad locomotives. Underwater trains. But mostly, for the absolute, unapologetic destruction of name pronunciation.

[@fanofeverything30465]

​@@HistoryintheDarkAlfred E Perlman roleplays

[@masterskrain2630]

@@HistoryintheDark "Ash-ta-BUHL-Ah"

[@Warzsoffical]

Make a video on the frisco railroad

[@geoffbeck8178]

@History in the Dark. Do you have a listing of upcoming fallen flag videos? I love these

[@ATJonzie]

Ashtabula, the only thing of significance in my home town is the disaster.

[@OKFrax-ys2op]

Well the harbor, at one time was the busiest in the world during WW2. That’s something 🤔🏆

[@MIKE-ld2in]

Pron. check Wabash accent on first syll Ashtabula accent on 3d syll. Love your stuff! BTW

[@milissathreatt8014]

There's actually a Nickel Plate Road Bay window Caboose in Winnsboro, SC at the Railroad Museum of South Carolina

[@alhasanbeitelmal6218]

I want to tell you that maby you could do the talks of England. Not British rail i meant the LMS, LNER, Southern, and GWR. It could be entertaining plus add swindon works.

[@TB587.3]

I love the Berkshires! :D

[@Crosby_3]

Hey, just wondering if you can talk about the Salem & Hillsborough railroad, the Sydney & Louisburg railway, or the Dominion Atlantic Railway? They are some of the shortlines in Atlantic canada.

[@True_NOON]

Tbh its a straight shot most of the time cuz its fields and a few small towns, so one can actually choose the alignment , way more than in for example the appalachians

[@N_scale]

Video suggestions 1. NdeM/TFM/KCSM/CPKCdeM 2. CGW 3. CNJ

[@sorshiaemms5959]

Love the Burks if you picture the word steam train thats what you would think it looked like

[@NoPegs]

@6:39 Ash-taaah-beau-lah.

[@buckyc.9069]

When NKP took delivery of their first Geeps and Alco diesels, did anybody imagine a hi-tech 21'st century unit, painted in the same color scheme? Go figure.

[@brianmorgan5739]

My honest opinion is that Nickel Plate and the Delaware Lackawanna and Western would have made good merger partners as well as eventual merger with the Chicago and Eastern Illinois later on. That way this merger would have opened up a direct route to the Eastern Seaboard for the Nickel Plate and a Chicago connection for the Lackawanna and a more direct Chicago to Saint Louis routing for both Nickel Plate and the Lackawanna combine as well as a greater access to Great Lakes ports for the Lackawanna and Ocean going facilities in Eastern New Jersey for all three in Hoboken. Yet this is my opinion.

[@adodgygeeza]

$7 million in 1881 is in today's money more in the region of $1.5-2.3 billion. The lower figure would be if you inflated by unskilled labour cost and the upper if you used GDP per capita. If you use consumer price index you are basically measuring how much better over time we have got at making consumer goods.

[@NKP1155]

Did you check with the Nickel Plate HTS? We are a great resource for images and deep back ground. You could make a better video if you revise the images to NKP material.

[@spyfan62591]

5:04 oh yes it is way worse. Largest understatement known to man

[@kurtpena5462]

"Wah Bash"

[@generalspitfire01]

There was a train named after .the town I live in that was operated by these guys

[@oldclip70]

I’m truly disappointed with this. I know that you took your time with this. Delaware, Lackawanna and Western wanted to take over NKP. The book Merging Lines gives an excellent account.

[@CrossOfBayonne]

In fact the Nickel Plate linked up with Lackawanna in Buffalo at what's now the light rail station over there, During World War II in August 1943 there was a wreck in Wayland NY when the Lackawanna Limited going 80 mph crashed into a mikado locomotive that was doing switching at the gunlocke chair factory one of the passenger cars where most of the deaths took place was in a Nickel Plate passenger car

[@Robbi496]

Gould had the Erie, why would he need the Nickel Plate?

[@CrazyBear65]

They chomp thru your skull with the greatest of ease, those big fluffy pumas in the overhead trees... Sorry, my inner asshat made me do it.

[@gonzoengineering4894]

Lehigh Valley When?

[@franks471]

Follow the Nickel Plate Road Follow follow follow follow follow the Nickel Plate Road...

[@zsracingandgaming8622]

Soo Line?

[@jeremymachacek9056]

as someone who knows people from the area of the bridge disaster, the way Ashtabula is pronounced is wrong. it is Ash-ta-bu-la

[@intercityrailpal]

Nickel Plate was a cash machine, but should have merged with Lackawanna. But that commuter loss was a issue. Not the long hauls that were few and still profitable with the mail and package express on them. But short haul high expense low revenue commuters. Killed that. A flood made the Lackawanna sell the gold eggs the NKP goose laided and lost control and income from the stock. ( They should have borrowed against the income! )

[@truckdaddy1957]

Wah-bash and ash-ta bue-la

[@mikeyhowell5449]

As a Indiana resident iam from peru, Indiana Nickel Plate road had a railroad it called lake Erie western 1928 Nickel plate road took over the Lake Erie western

[@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014]

Pere Marquette

[@buckyc.9069]

If you read Steinbecks "East of Eden", he'll give you whiff,(yuck!), of how transporting produce had some fits and starts, until technology was given time to catch up.

[@CrazyBear65]

I wanted to hear about the Nickel Plate, not about rich dudes. Fulton's piers, a former part of the Wabash Railroad, still exist in Pittsburgh, as does the tunnel bored thru Mt Washington, now converted to carry vehicle traffic. Today's PSA: Pumas are just big kittycats. Big, fluffy, oversize kittycats that will chomp thru your skull with the greatest of ease...

[@Robbi496]

Goold, not Gold :)

[@intercityrailpal]

I am sure General Motors bought shares of Nickel Plate for control and to force them to buy diesels. Like they did to other railroads. GM still owns shares and sits on the board of directors of railroads today. The influence would get faster service and lower rates.GM at this time was the most powerful company in the world. Later they would fall and be bailed out by the billions by the government.

[@poowg2657]

It's pronounced WAH-bash but godd video anyway.

[@Robbi496]

NYC S L kinda spells nickel :)

[@themadmahaha8129]

As someone from Ashtabula, I’d like to call out you pronounced it wrong. It’s Ash-ta-bu-la

[@robg9236]

not berksher but berksheer, not lima but leema

[@kimberlyknox4426]

Man why are all the railroads gone in Detroit.

[@gtwfan52]

Your work is well researched and very well put together. But damn dude, you gotta work on your pronunciation. It made it very hard to follow the part about Gould with you pronouncing it "Gold".

[@howardcitizen2471]

The city of the trestle collapse is pronounced "ash-ta-BU-la"

[@CrazyBear65]

Wabash, pronounced WAH bash, not "wuh-BOSH." (Think of a train bashing a wall, like wall bash, but take the ll out: Wabash.)

[@natevince3154]

ashtabula pronounced: ash ta byoo la.

[@specialed6357]

What's wrong with SS? Social security, secret service, spacely sprockets, etc... LOL 😜

[@BillP-kg1yp]

Wabash does not rhyme with galosh.

[@JordPulls]

The ss

[@markvogel5872]

wabash.... Wah-Bash lol

[@joshroller9449]

Look up how to pronounce Wabash

[@pcs913]

Do you EVER research and practice the proper pronunciation of sir names before you record your scripts?

[@0fficialdregs]

i hate norfolk southern.

[@kelvintorrence5994]

Norfolk and crashing you mean

[@0fficialdregs]

@@kelvintorrence5994 no for much more other things than that.