It’s a freezing morning on 19 February 1990, and Indiana Hi-Rail Corporation #352 is on its way with a cut of cars to the CSXT interchange in Defiance, Ohio. Conductor Rance Greider rides the pilot, preparing to alight and throw a switch.
The Alco RS-11 had only recently arrived in Defiance. It was sent up as a backup for the only other locomotive on the line, IHRC 365, which had covered duties since the IHRC took over operations on the Woodburn, IN–Liberty Center, OH branch from the N&W in November 1989.
Number 352 has a long history, having been built for the Seaboard Air Line as their #102 in June 1960. It then went to the Louisville & Nashville as #952. In the 1980s, IHRC acquired the unit and chopped its nose, renumbering it later to #352. In the early 1990s, following IHRC’s financial problems and bankruptcy, the unit served with the Wabash & Erie Railroad and then the Indiana Boxcar Corporation. In the early 2000s, the unit made its way to the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad (apparently never entering service there) before reaching the Arkansas Railroad Museum in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where it survives to this day.
The former IHRC operation at Defiance is now operated as the Maumee & Western Railroad.
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