A museum that moves: Nickel Plate 765 and the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society

Society founded 1972 — the 765 restored 1975–1979

Course: Some museums are buildings; this one is a locomotive. Berkshire No. 765, built for the Nickel Plate Road in 1944, was retired in 1963 and given to the city of Fort Wayne, which displayed it in Lawton Park wearing the number 767 — the number the city had actually wanted, for the engine that had opened the Nickel Plate elevation, which had proved to be in poor mechanical condition: in 1963 the numbers were switched, the sound 765 went into the park as the 767, and the true 767 went to scrap (the full account is in the Trains section). The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, formed in 1972 to put a steam locomotive back under power, leased the engine from the city, pulled it from the park in September 1974, and rebuilt it with unpaid volunteers at New Haven from 1975 to 1979; in September 1979 the 765 ran under its own steam for the first time since 1963. It has run excursions across the eastern United States ever since, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, and joined Norfolk Southern's 21st Century Steam program in 2012. The society — over 400 members and more than 70 volunteers — keeps the engine in New Haven, just east of the city line; it is included here as Fort Wayne's own locomotive and the region's living railroad museum, with its home noted plainly.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society (Wikipedia, from society records) — founded 1972, the 1973 lease, the 1974 removal from Lawton Park, the 1975–79 restoration, National Register listing 12 September 1996, the 21st Century Steam program in 2012.
2. Visit Fort Wayne, Allen County Historic Sites — the 765's display in Lawton Park disguised as 767, and the restoration of 1975–1979.