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Well, it was exactly that which sparked my interest in the first place (probably coupled with all the years I spent driving by ol 765 while it was in public mothballs) but the story according to the way I read it : It all started in Cleveland OH with a group of Bankers, accountants and Lawyers who were devising s scheme of quasi legal extortion... withn the targets being Cornelius Vanderbilt (NYC) and Jay Gould (UP). Both targets sought to keep the other out of their own domains, while seeking a means to invade the domains of the other. Along come the Cleveland bunch, with the business plan to build the perfect instrument for either, and sell it to the highest bidder. But the emphasis of "perfect" is the essence of the name. Painstakeing efforts were made to buy right-of-way that afforded the straightest, levelest tangents possible, even if such required hurculean efforts to construct iron bridges, in the damnedst of locations, to make it all work. It did, they did, and the product in the works was promoted as "a nickel plated railroad" which made sense to those involved in constructing Railways at the time, over engineering incorporated in delivering the finished product as touted. To the general public, it just seemed like a nice fancy name. But irrespective,..the name "stuck" and became the roads "herald" of sorts.... The Cleveland group almost succeeded, in that a bidding war did result, that they "cauldron stirred" for years, pressing both Vanderbilt and Gould to the mat several times seeking financing to make good on the next level of bidding, on this protracted "auction". But, Gould was a sly Dog, and was working his own contingency plan, which culminated in his eventually enlisting a group of farmers to buy "left over" land paralleling the wabash and erie canal through Indiana, after the canals completion. The state Of indiana was heavily borrowed to fund the canal, and when Goulds consortium proved to be exactly that, and a railway was laid right alongside the recently completed canal, Gould out competed the canal, driving the entire state of Indiana into bankruptcy, and giving Goulds new "Wabash" railroad the edge he needed to say "Bahhhhh!" to the cleveland group. And for all practical purposes at the same time nullifying the appeal of the Nickel Plate to Cornelius Vanderbilt, since the "polcat" was now "in the henhouse". No matter, because during the protracted bidding war, the Cleveland group discovered they had built a winner, it was profitable to run this highly optimised railway, just as it's Namesake...New York Chicago & St Louis...... This next concept is mostly conjecture on my part, and I welcome anyone having superior knowledge to set the record straight. But I have no indication that the Nickel Plate ever had a direct Chicago to St Louis mainline. In fact to get from Chicago to St Louis on nickel plate right of way, the closest path woud be back into indiana, to a spur at Argos, the spur to Kokomo, where you would pick up the mailine from Fostoria to St Louis. A similar spur existed fro the main line in Fort Wayne's main line, south to Rush ville, permitting interconnect with the same mainline from Fostoria to St Louis. But the only "All Main line" path from Chicago to St Louis, on the Ny, Chi, & StL railroad requires one to lumber a state and a half back east to the iron triangle of Fostoria to make the connection. Proof in my mind that the significance of the Railroads given name, as well as it's nickname, was designed to maximize it's appeal to the two Robber barons it was being groomed to seduce... How did I do...=)
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