Steam & Excursion > Whitewater Valley Railroad Disaster

The Whitewater Valley Railroad (WWVR) has operated excursion service over the old New York Central's Whitewater Branch between Connersville IN and Metamora IN for over the past 50 years.  The line closely follows the West Fork of the Whitewater River as well as the remains of the Whitewater Canal.  The line has a nice collection of first generation diesels, with 5 units being operations - 1 GE 65 tonner, a Lima LS-750, a Lima LS-1000, an Alco S-1, and an EMD SD10, along with a fleet of passenger cars and cabooses and several historic freight cars.  Their yard has a nice shop, plus a display  that features the old Rushville IN B&O depot and the former B&O/NYC Dearborn Tower from Lawrenceburg IN.   Both where disassembled and brought to Connersville where there where meticulously reassembled, restored and placed in a display at south end of yard.  Sadly, today the shop, equipment, displays, and virtually entire mainline is under a record amount of water.

In the early 70s when WWVR was starting out, the US Army Corp of Engineers has embarked on a massive flood control project to protect the down stream towns of Brookville IN and Harrison OH.  This resulted in the East Fork of the Whitewater being damned creating Brookville Reservoir, while the West Fork remained unspoiled but received river gauges.  Since the gauge went operable in 1974, it twice hit 16.8 feet, the latest a few years ago which cause heavy damage to WWVR.  This morning she hit 21.78 feet.  This is causing catastrophic damage in Fayette and Franklin Counties in Southeast Indiana with the bulls-eye on the railroad.  

In a happier time this past May, we see Lima LS-1000 #709 leading a Friday charter northbound from Metamora to Connersville passing through Laurel IN.  Take note of brown building on the right side the the first shot, and the road paralleling the train in second shot.  Third shot from this morning is on opposite side of track - that brown building is just off screen to the right and the stop sign for the side road in second shot is visible across the tracks



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/26 09:03 by scraphauler.

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Here's a picture I found on social media looking south toward the shop and yard.  You can see it gets deeper the farther you go, and you can see the MILW SD10 in the water.  Praying for the area and the railroad to be able to recover from this record flood event.  

On the class 1 side, this same event is heavily impacting both CSXT and NS.  CSXT's Cincinnati-Indianapolis line through Connersville and route of Amtrak's Cardinal is closed with reports of damage starting to come in, and NS's busy New Castle sub has suffered damage including washouts and a compromised bridge. 

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Oh, man. I hope they were able to move stuff to higher ground. Seeing the Limas has been on my bucket list for years.

From the Ahead of the Torch Facebook page

#1 is west of the shop complex
#2 is looking across at the area south of the shop, and the passenger cars
#3 is track some where

It looks really bad and the word is that somewhere between 2 inches and 6 inches of rain is still expected.

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Amazing amount of rain and flooding in southeastern Indiana.  Hope the Whitewater Valley RR is able to recover from this torrential downpour.  Thanks for updating us on the latest flooding.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/26 14:54 by cozephyr.

Really wasn’t time to move anything. This was not predicted - yes, heavy rains and storms, but no one imagined anything like this. At 12:30 am Wednesday morning, river was at 5.69 feet, normal pool stage. Record level (since Army Corp installed gauge in 1974) was 16.8 feet, hit twice. Last time a couple years ago hit WWVR hard but didn’t come close to yard. 12 hours and 17 inches of rain later, river was pushing 17 feet, setting new record. Crested at over 21. Came up that fast to levels no one had seen before.

Posted from iPhone

That photo of the washed out track is from an area that is generally a low risk for flooding and is on the northern 1/3 of the line that parallels State Route 121.  About 2/3 of the line is deep in the woods and is mostly within site of the river.  Several spots where the riverbank comes right to the edge of the track.  Most of the line is still inaccessible due to high water and I fear numerous catastrophic washouts that could take days to get to.   On top of that, all of the equipment, including the locomotives were in pooled water in the yard and shop up to the car frames.  The shop had 3 feet of water in it.

Not only is there a huge mechanical assessment and repair job of the equipment ahead of the museum, but the track itself is likely obliterated in many spots.  If there is a way to get emergency funds from the state or federal government, I see that as the only realistic way to restore the line to Metamora any time soon.  If not, it will take years just to buy enough ties and ballast to make track repairs in increments so that some type of excursion can can restart.  

I am nervous to see what the river did to the track.

If the engines were in three feet of water, the traction motors are probably shot at the very least.

That's a major concern. Those Lima's use Westinghouse traction motors, which are not easy to find.

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> If the engines were in three feet of water, the
> traction motors are probably shot at the very
> least.

K8DTI Wrote:
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> That's a major concern. Those Lima's use
> Westinghouse traction motors, which are not easy
> to find.
>

That's why there are electric motor rewind shops.

More $$$ for an organization that is going to need every penny.

PHall Wrote:
> That's why there are electric motor rewind shops.

Sorry to hear about the Whitewater. I live in Indiana. East Central Indiana got hit hard too, including Muncie, Richmod and Pendleton. 

Victor Baird

cozephyr Wrote:
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> Amazing amount of rain and flooding in
> southeastern Indiana.  Hope the Whitewater Valley
> RR is able to recover from this torrential
> downpour.  Thanks for updating us on the latest
> flooding.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/26 01:59 by wabash2800.

Yikes. Don't piss off Mother Nature.

Bob Phelps
Micanopy, FL

I hope they recover. It is a nice operation. The flooding in that area and how quickly the water rose is really unprecidented. As someone else mentioned, this was in no way predicted. No one had time to prepare. A line of typical summer thunderstorms turned into a derecho which is basicaly an inland hurricane. Many people ended up stranded. The historic town of Metamora that the train serves is also heavily flood damaged.

Here are some pictures taken by Mae Valkryrie showing just the tip of the damage at the yard and display area - keep in mind, this was very neat and orderly area as far as tourist railroads go



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/26 10:21 by scraphauler.

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More.

This is just the Connersville end.  Flooding gets worse as you get down stream along their line.

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K8DTI Wrote:
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> More $$$ for an organization that is going to need
> every penny.
>

Well it's either rebuild what you have or throw in the towel. Westinghouse traction motors aren't exactly falling off the trees.


> PHall Wrote:
> > That's why there are electric motor rewind
> shops.

Is that their debri or was it washed in from other sources?

Victor Baird

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> Is that their debri or was it washed in from other
> sources?
>
> Victor Baird
Some of it probably is, but much of the volume of debris is dozens and dozens of large plastic pallets and we haven't figured out where those came from yet.

Posted from Android

The river rose very quickly in much of the area. Towns that never needed flood insurance may face a need in the future.

Posted from Android