Autumn Railroad Festival wraps up 4-day historic locomotive experience for families

The Fort Wayne Railroad, located in New Haven, boasted the main locomotive, 'The NickelPlate 765,' for families to view after a 2-month delay.

Under investigation.

Tonight wraps up the final day of the autumn railroad festival.

The event put together by the fort wayne railroad historical society.

Fox 55's mallory beard met with organizers and attendees to see how the four-day event went after being postponed for nearly two months because of covid-19.

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The annual autumn railroad festival brought families to new haven a little later this year.

Christopher homco//festival membership and outreach coordinator "open house is normally mid-august but we had to postpone it until october when we were confident we could put together a safe event."

Festival coordinator chris homco gave us some history behind the main locomotive used to transport food across fort wayne from 1944 through 1958.

Christopher homco//festival membership and outreach coordinator "with their tagline 'high speed freight,' they ran produce, fruit, cattle, dry goods, anything you could imagine that needed to be shipped between buffalo new york, st louis missouri and all marks in between."

So we went aboard and took a look inside.

The locomotive crew shoveled coal into the train's firebox to the engine burning.

?nats?"you kind of see how big that fireball is...almost the size of a small living room fire."

Organizers say even with the two month delay, tickets were sold out for both the train rides and the pumpkin patch.

Leslie hamman says she was thankful her family gets to experience this piece of local history together.

Leslie hamman//festival attendee "this is an amazing experience.

Our grandson loves trains and so does his baby sister now.

We came on the christmas one and now that we can celebrate and pick up pumpkins...i'm just amazed and grateful that the historical society is saving this part of history.

In fort wayne, i'm mallory beard.

Fox 55 news organizers say families can prepare to return to the railroad site for the 19-th annual 'santa train' in december.

Tickets must be purchased in advance.

For detailed information on dates and times, see this story on our website