Service stop
Knox, IN
10 S. Heaton St.
What’s happening at this stop
A brief whistle-stop rather than a display. 4014 is scheduled to pause in downtown Knox, near Heaton Street, around midday for roughly half an hour. There is no formal viewing area, no tickets, and no up-close or cab access; it is a chance to watch the locomotive at the crossing. Times can move with the day's operations, so plan to wait.
Why this stop matters
Knox owes its growth to the Nickel Plate Road. The New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railway — nicknamed the Nickel Plate for the high standard of its 1882 construction — built through Knox that year, finally giving the town the rail connection it had lacked and linking it into a fast freight route running from Buffalo through Cleveland to Chicago. A watchman's tower once guarded the downtown crossings.
The Nickel Plate was one of the classic fast-freight railroads of the era 4014 was built, later absorbed into the Norfolk & Western — a predecessor of today's Norfolk Southern, over whose rails the Big Boy now rolls.