There are active railroad tracks just to the north. If crossing the tracks to go to the museum, PLEASE Stop, Look, and Listen!
NO NIGHT CACHING, DAYLIGHT CACHING ONLY!
This is on the grounds of the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum. The grounds of the storage yard are open from Dawn to Dusk. It is not necessary to enter the main museum yard to claim this virtual.
The Museum
The Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum opened in 1976, with one caboose in the collection, and has since grown over the decades to include both steam and diesel locomotives, passenger and freight cars, an operational 200-ton wrecker, a "V" shape snow plow, as well as the Silver Dome, the very first passenger dome car built in the United States. The name of the museum comes from the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, the first chartered railroad in Ohio, and the Nickel Plate Road (New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company), which is the railroad that ran through Bellevue from 1882 to 1964, when it merged with the Norfolk & Western Railway, which is now known as Norfolk Southern. “NKP” is the American Association of Railroads reporting mark for the Nickel Plate Road. If you decide to take the time to go through the main museum yard, you can climb into the locomotive cabs, sit in the Engineer’s seat, or step into the cabooses and see how the early Conductors worked and lived when on the road. A passenger coach, sleeper car, dome, and dining car portray passenger travel in the late 1940s-50s era before the automobile became the preferred travel mode and took the passengers away from the rails. There are artifacts to interest everyone visiting, from old paper documents regarding the operations of trains, to the china and silver settings used on the luxury passenger cars, to track maintenance tools, and how communication has developed from early lamps and hand signals to modern radio communications between crews and dispatchers.
Nickel Plate Road 757
Constructed in 1944 by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio, the 757 was once one of 80 technologically advanced, fast-freight steam locomotives on the roster of the Nickel Plate Road. The 757’s home terminal was Bellevue, Ohio where it and its sister engines were charged with operating manifest freight and freight trains between Chicago, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Conneaut, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York. These engines soon became icons of the railroad and ubiquitous throughout the system. Weighing 440,800lbs, the 757 could operate at speeds in excess of 60MPH and pull some of the longest and heaviest freight trains of the day.
Retired in 1958 and stored in Bellevue throughout the 1960s, 757 was originally designated to be donated to the City of Bellevue, Ohio long before the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum was established. The City of Bellevue could not provide a display site for the locomotive after many years of failed attempts. In 1966, the newly created Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania saved the locomotive from an uncertain future by accepting its donation from the Norfolk & Western Railway.
In early 2017, the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum (MR&NKP) and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (RRMPA) of Strasburg, Pennsylvania began negotiations to allow the 757 to return to her hometown of Bellevue and become a featured display at the MR&NKP Museum. Years of outside display at Strasburg had taken their toll on the locomotive and the RRMPA decided that 757 did not have as strong a connection to Pennsylvania’s railroading history as some of their other locomotives and railroad cars, which also require considerable attention. In the end, the RRMPA agreed to transfer ownership of the 757 to the MR&NKP upon removal of the locomotive.
After 18 months of fundraising and preparations, the 757 left the RRMPA on February 11th, 2019. Traveling over the railroad lines of the Strasburg Rail Road, Amtrak, and the Norfolk Southern Corporation, the locomotive was towed 500 miles without incident after sitting for nearly 53 years. A Nickel Plate steel cupola caboose from the MR&NKP escorted the locomotive with an escort crew, lubricants, and tools. On February 14th, 2019, Norfolk Southern delivered the 757 to the MR&NKP Coach Yard.
To claim the find for the virtual, please take a picture of yourself or your signature item with the 757 and post it with your log.
In addition to the photo, please message me through geocaching.com the name of the company that is on the majority of bricks at virtual stage 1.
Unfortunately, the 757 is currently not available year round, as they are trying to keep it preserved through the winter. If you visit at a time that the locomotive is put away, please take a picture with another piece of equipment in the museum yard that you find interesting. This could be in either the storage yard near the main coordinates, or by the main museum yard, which is fenced in.
Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.