Central Indiana city evicting train museum from local park

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. – A central Indiana city is parting ways with a train museum that’s leased land in a local park for more than a half-century.

Noblesville’s parks board has voted to end its relationship with the Indiana Transportation Museum when its Forest Park lease expires in March. The Indianapolis Star reports Mayor John Ditslear has criticized the museum’s maintenance of the property it first leased in 1965 in the northern Indianapolis suburb.

About 30,000 people visit the museum annually to see its locomotives, box cars and historical artifacts.

The non-profit museum’s volunteers operated the Indiana State Fair Train for decades along the 37-mile Nickel Plate railroad tracks. But Noblesville has been at odds with the museum since 2016, when the fair train was ordered suspended because of unsafe tracks.

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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com