The Nickel Plate Road (its proper name was the New York, Chicago & St. Louis) was one of the last North American railroads to use steam extensively in freight service. In 1949 the Nickel Plate took delivery of the last steam engines built for domestic use by the Lima Locomotive Works, 2-8-4s Nos. 770-779 in class S-3. Lima had also built most of NKP's existing fleet of these super-power locomotives, and until mid-1958 these famous locomotives were still handling high-speed traffic on the Chicago-to-Buffalo line. Berkshire No. 746 handled the last revenue mainline steam on July 2, 1958.

On April 3, 1958 my father, my brother and I paid a visit to the engine terminal at NKP's Calumet Yard in Chicago, where we saw and photographed these engines just a few months before complete dieselization took them out of service. A cooperative roundhouse hostler even treated my brother to a cab ride, in the days before such impromptu events had fallen victim to railroad management's sensitivity to legal liability. We took both color transparencies and black-and-white shots that day, recording on film at least five examples of these outstanding class S locomotives. Because it was midday we didn't get very good photo lighting in most cases. But, five decades later, these scenes are too important to omit from our Archive.

At right, Berkshire 762 of class S-2 poses on the roundhouse lead, ready to back out to its eastbound train. Class S-2 left the Lima erecting floor in 1944. All locomotives seen on this page belong to this subclass.

Above we see Berkshire 762 coupling onto her train in the yard. In the color scene below she gets her train under way with a plume of smoke. The Nickel Plate's Berkshires in class S through S-3 had 25x34-inch cylinders, 69-inch drivers, a boiler pressure of 245 pounds per square inch, and 90.3 square feet of grate area. These locomotives produced 64,100 pounds of tractive effort, and generated a calculated 4500 horsepower. This was enough to propel a 4000-ton train at 70 miles per hour, and in actual practice this tonnage was often exceeded.

Above we see No. 757 preparing to couple to her eastbound freight. This engine survives at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. The Nickel Plate 2-8-4s were a high-speed freight locomotive with which the railroad successfully competed with parallel lines of the much larger New York Central between Buffalo, Chicago and St. Louis. In anticipation of the mass-production technology that would characterize the diesel era, several other railroads purchased 2-8-4s of almost identical dimensions in the years before and after World War II — the Wheeling & Lake Erie; the Pere Marquette; the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac; the Virginian; and above all the Chesapeake & Ohio which called them Kanawhas after the West Virginia river. Differing slightly in specifications and cosmetic details, these locomotives were all based on the design for the Nickel Plate's original order delivered by the American Locomotive Company in 1934. Although it was Lima rather, than Alco, that constructed the majority of these Berkshires, the initial order was given to Alco as low bidder on a government-financed purchase through the Depression-era Public Works Administration. (Thanks to Peter K. Shepherd, Publications Director for the Nickel Plate Road Historical & Technical Society, for that information.)

Above, S-2 Berkshire 744 rests on the ready track with No. 766 awaiting their joint assignment. Frequently these Nickel Plate Berkshires were double-headed, as in the transparency below of Nos. 744 and 766 departing Calumet Yard with an eastbound freight. Because the first railroads to own locomotives of this design were controlled by the Van Sweringen brothers, they are often called the "Van Sweringen Berkshires."

Twenty-four engines of this standard Berkshire design survive, and several have been operational since the end of their use in revenue service. Nickel Plate No. 759 is at Steamtown, with a volunteer group planning to restore it to operating condition. Pere Marquette No. 1225 is owned and operated by Michigan's Steam Railroading Institute. C&O No. 2716, modified to simulate a Southern Railway locomotive (the Southern never owned Berkshires), also enjoyed a career at the head of many railfan trips.

Most famous of all the Nickel Plate's Berkshires is probably No. 765, now owned by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society. During our 1958 visit to Calumet Yard, No. 765 posed in the terminal amidst a cloud of steam (above, left), and we also captured her on the turntable (right).

After being restored to operation in 1979, No. 765 was in excursion service until 1993 when her flue time expired. Thanks to the diligent work of members of the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society she is ready to run once again. On a trip through Fort Wayne in July 2005 I photographed her as the crew was loading coal into her tender to fire her up for her first boiler test. With the restoration of No. 765 the heritage of the Nickel Plate Berkshires rolls on.