In early September of 1989, I received a phone call from the Indiana Hi-Rail Corporation in response to a resume I had sent them. They told me that they were planning to open a new division based in Defiance, Ohio, and asked me to come to Connersville, IL for an interview. As I had had no other offers from a railroad, and had heard that IHRC was a “progressive outfit”, I readily agreed and started to plan the trip. Since Defiance lay along the route, I decided to stop in and have a look at my possible future work location.
IHRC was planning to lease the Norfolk Southern’s ex-Wabash line between Woodburn, Indiana and Liberty Center, Ohio. Serving a variety of businesses, the new IHRC division was to be based in Defiance, in the former-Wabash yard office building.
I found the NS yard just a few blocks off the Defiance main street, near the elevator and the Johns Manville Plant. Being a Saturday, no one was on duty, and the landscape was entirely that of NS predecessor, the Norfolk & Western Railway. I peered through the grated windows of the yard office to get a glimpse of my possible future workplace, and then recorded the overall scene.
From Defiance, I drove on to the Indiana Hi-Rail headquarters at Connersville, IN. My interview was successful, and in October I started working for IHRC at Connersville and Evansville, IN. N&W would pull out of Defiance in November of 1989, and I would return there to start work as the IHRC agent,
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