Ghost Train
Here are some photographs of Amtrak’s National Limited in Indianapolis. This train, under the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, ran from 1971 till 1979, when it was discontinued. This is an eastbound train—looking at a timetable for this time period, the train was scheduled to be in this station from 11:15 to 11:35 PM.
Along with a train of legacy equipment, the brick facade of the train shed and the wonderful clock tower of Indianapolis Union Station can be seen in the first image. I evidently was allowed to visit the cab of the SDP40F as the second shot is of the engineer’s control stand.
The last image has the train gliding out during a long time exposure; IU tower can be seen in the middle of the image. This rather large brick tower built was built in 1930 by the Indianapolis Union Railroad, closed in 1980, and razed in 2018.
Three images by Richard Koenig; taken April 17th 1976.
