Train no. 405

NG503065

Train no. 405

Steam Passenger Train

Number 405 hustles through the interlocking at KD behind the quickening beats of the 5291. The track in the center foreground is the B&o main, which joins and absorbs the eastward main of the P&E at KD and continues to IJ, representing the B&O's share in the paired-track arrangement between those points. The "tufted" signal typical of the B&O is visible to the right of the NYC home signal, and at the extreme right, a B&O switcher idles on the Moorefield yard lead. No. 405 is about to cross Belmont Street, a main thoroughfare which, between the B&O's protracted shuffling and the NYC's occasional setoffs, is blocked almost as often as not (the shadow of the gateman's elevated shanty falls in the lower left corner above). In fact, the blocking of Belmont Street has been reported in the newspapers on at least one occasion, so great has been the public indignation, The NYC's part in the villainy is relatively minor, the B&O being the chief offender. The situation faced by the latter here is practically impossible, since the lead at the other (west) end of their yard crosses Michigan Street, an artery more congested than Belmont. There are many places such as these where, as automobile traffic continually increases, the NYC and other railroads are faced with the financially uninviting prospect of grade separations.

Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor

2-1/4x3-1/4 neg

Spring, 1954

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461

J-1d

#5291

Alco-Schen

KD, Indianapolis, IN

See NG503065a