Nickel Plate Road No. 757

Nickel Plate Road No. 757 is a 2-8-4 S-2-class "Berkshire" type steam locomotive.
==History==
757 was built in 1944 by the Lima Locomotive Works for the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad.
The 757’s home terminal was Bellevue, Ohio, where 757 and its sister engines were tasked 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.
It was retired in Bellevue, Ohio, in 1958, where it languished awaiting donation. Originally intended by the NKP to be donated to Bellevue, the city could not raise fuding for an adequate display site. It was gifted to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA, by the Norfolk & Western in 1966 (the NKP merged into the N&W in 1964), and became the first locomotive donated to the museum.
For more than half a century, the locomotive was left on static display at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania where it sustained much damage exposed to the elements. This was the case until an agreement with the RRMPA and the Mad River and NKP Railroad Museum saw its donation to the latter. The move to Bellevue, OH occurred on the week-end of February 9/10, 2019. In preparation for the move, the 757 was picked up by the Norfolk Southern via the Strasburg Railroad for deliver to Bellevue. The 757 arrived in Bellevue on February 14, 2019.
After a partial cosmetic restoration (including the addition of a Mars light), the 757 was put on static display at the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum, where it resides today. Plans for a full cosmetic restoration are being put into place as of 2024.
==Trivia==
*It is one of five preserved NKP S-2s, and one of six surviving NKP 2-8-4s.
*On May 30, 2018 the locomotive was moved from the museum to perform several test runs (though pulled by a Strsburg Railroad switcher, never under her own steam) in anticipation of her eventual move to the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum in Bellevue, Ohio to be cosmetically restored.
*In 2021, a fellow Nickel Plate Road Berkshire, no. 765, visited the museum and posed side-by-side with no. 757.
*Before the move to Bellevue, OH, a team from the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum gave the 757 light cosmetic work to "dress her up" for the big occasion.
*The locomotive can be seen in Herron Rail's Steam & Diesel on the NKP volume 1.
==See Also:==
*Gallery
Category:Steam locomotives
Category:Tender locomotives
Category:Freight locomotives
Category:Lima locomotives
Category:American locomotives
Category:Nickel Plate Road locomotives
Category:Eight-coupled locomotives
Category:2-8-4 locomotives
Category:2-8-4 steam locomotives
Category:Built in 1944
Category:Locomotives
Category:American steam locomotives
Category:Standard gauge locomotives
Category:Passenger locomotives
Category:Restored locomotives
Category:Preserved locomotives
Category:Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum
Category:Preserved steam locomotives