Steam-powered train brings crowds to the tracks

The old, steam-powered Detroit Arrow 765 passed through Belleville twice on Saturday, July 12, and twice again on Sunday, July 13, with many train lovers waiting at crossings along the route between Allen Park and Fort Wayne to watch the train go past and hear its unique whistle.
Janis and Joe Amadore of Hollow’s Landscaping on Rawsonville Road were passengers on the train and said they waved to people at crossings all along the way. Even Amish communities were out to wave, Janis said, adding they’d never had their pictures taken so many times.
The passengers on Norfolk Southern’s Detroit Arrow excursion train were given time during the four-hour layover in Fort Wayne to attend the Three Rivers Festival in downtown Fort Wayne before beginning the ride back to Allen Park. Tickets were sold for coach, first-class and scenic-dome car seating.
Nickel Plate 765 was built in 1944 at the Lima Locomotive Works and after its retirement by the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad was donated to Fort Wayne, which displayed it in a city park until the early 1970s. A historical society organized to restore it to operating condition after a decade of exposure to the weather.
It ran on a variety of excursion trains between 1979 and 1993, after which the 765 was sidelined for a major overhaul that began in 2000 and took six years to complete.
Two years ago, in part to celebrate its 30th corporate anniversary as well as the historical group’s 40th, Norfolk Southern arranged for a series of excursions led by Engine 765.