After countless hours of research, restoration and investment, Jakob was ready for this moment.

When I grabbed the point on the controller and the car, moved.

It was scary at first because I wasn't sure how it was going to stop.

All right, wound it out and see what happens.

Before the internet.

Before automobiles.

Before interstates.

trains and trolleys were the kings of connection, ushering in an age of unprecedented growth for all and just 45 minutes outside of Indianapolis lies an unassuming, unmarked barn full of priceless artifacts and humble Hoosiers on a mission to preserve Indiana's interurban legacy.

I've been interested in trains and trolleys since I can talk.

My first word was choo choo.

And it's just been building up from there.

Indiana was once home to one of the largest electric rail networks in the country.

It started out of, city networks, like with, you know, they had mule cars and then they went to streetcars and the little electric ones.

And someone got the bright idea, hey, we could take this little streetcar and we could make it a little bigger and a little faster and go from Anderson to Alexandria and then Anderson to Muncie and then Anderson to Indianapolis.

Indiana had the most miles per capita.

every county road would have a little shelter and you could flag it down and stop it.

take you into whatever city you were headed to that was nearby.

just a good way to connect small towns And this connection wasn't just for getting people from A to B, since these trolleys required power, their routes effectively became the state's first electrical grid.

Well, they figured out that they're making way more electricity at the power house because every interurban company made its own electricity because there was no electric company.

So they started selling it to the towns along the way and then lighting up the towns as they went.

And.

As communities became more connected, the opportunities available to locals grew exponentially.

especially the rural people that, you know, they wouldn't have had access to a lot of things.

my great grandfather's an example.

He lived, oh.

It's about six miles north of Anderson, in a little town, and they only had eighth grade education.

And he rode in urban from his little town just out the middle of nowhere.

to Anderson to go to high school, So it really was the interstate highway of its time.

you know, we had dirt roads, there were no paved highways.

So that was the most efficient way to move people and goods was by rail.

By the 1940s, cars and highways had effectively replaced the interurbans With much of the old infrastructure being torn out in favor of pavement.

A lot of the interurbans they went out of business and became power companies, Now, the automobile came along and they had a choice to sell electricity or haul people.

And so the power company is still here, but the railroad's long gone.

One by one, train cars scattered across the nation in many cases left to rust away entirely.

Until a small group in Indiana stepped in.

the shortest possible version of the long, convoluted story is, these cars were in danger of getting, scrapped, and I happened to have a really good bonus that year from, when I was working, and, kind of fronted the money to save all the stuff with no real plan or no idea what to do.

Luckily, there were a lot of other people that were interested in it.

and said, hey, I bought this stuff.

You want to form a nonprofit with me and most of the people said, you're nuts.

But luckily, 4 or 5 of them thought, hey, that's kind of cool yeah we should do this.

And, we formed a nonprofit and just kind of went from there.

What we have here, the 5 or 6 we have are some of all that's known to be left in the state of Indiana.

And they at that point needed a new home.

They were in danger.

So we came together and we acquired them as individuals to save them.

We looked at it from these are irreplaceable pieces of Hoosier history.

They're not only our story, they're your story.

So we came together, and we made sure that we saved these last pieces of Indiana's electric railway story.

Piece by piece, the volunteers at the Hoosier Heartland Trolley Company bring these transportation time capsules back to life.

Yeah.

So we broke this major project down into smaller little bites.

all the mechanicals under the car are one, the painting of the seating areas is one.

Also, we'll be doing things like roofing and windows So those are all individual projects that together will make all the parts of a big project.

But since these are essentially massive museum pieces, each of these steps are handled with the utmost care and attention to detail.

to school.

It's a judgment call.

Does it impact safety?

Does it impact the actual working order of the car?

Does it impact it visually?

So there is this fine line of, What are we going to replace?

What are we going to keep?

How do we repair it and restore it so that you can appreciate the original?

Youll see where we've kept some little tiny areas of original finish that were protected.

But the rest of it was painted like with house paint.

So off it comes everything's big.

Earnings heavy.

You know, it's industrial work.

You know, there's a lot of welding and, you know, torching, occasionally, you know, you'll just look down and notice you're on fire a little bit, put it out and go on.

I would say the hardest thing was when we were doing, truck work underneath.

We were changing motors.

They're big.

They're awkward.

And it's all very fragile.

no good way to handle them.

I think the most rewarding thing was when we did our big mechanical grant two years ago.

normally a grant like that.

that would have been like a ten year project.

that grant, we had a, you know, 365 days to take.

It was sitting on blocks, you know, here it is.

Go turn this into a train.

You know, we did two motors and built an entire air brake system from scratch.

so many little intricate pieces to to be able to do that in a year's time, I think was, I don't know that I'll ever be able to top that in the list of accomplishments.

As you can see, there's a lot of time, effort and money that goes into the restoration process.

But Michelle and the rest of the team feel like it's all worth it.

The interurban story is so important first of all, because they are going away like the few that are left are scattered to the wind.

But also we forget how our towns and cities were built and how they connect.

So that is so important in Indiana.

this really was the crossroads of the country.

you need to know where your roots are.

I've always kind of maintained that that's one of the most interesting periods in time in general.

someone in 1900 couldn't even dream of what's happening in 1950. and the impact that this would have had on, you know, somebody's life.

You know, I think that someone in 1900, the fastest thing they'd ever seen was a horse.

And by 1930, you could get on this thing and be in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, in three hours.

Once all the repairs on this trolley are complete, the Hoosier Heartland Trolley Company intends to get it out of the barn and into the hands of Hoosiers.

So we decided, we're going to have a museum that's open to the public, that provides educational programs, that brings people together.

not only by displaying the cars and having a traditional museum exhibit experience that you would typically think of, but an immersive experience or a heritage railroad where you can actually ride the trains and see what it was like 100 years ago.

We want to make sure, that folks can enjoy the electric railways as they were.

and really have that light bulb moment where they're like, oh, this is what it was like.

This is why it was important.

But historical preservation isn't necessarily the only thing that keeps them coming back to devote their time and skills.

It's not just the project or the trains, but it's the people.

And I know that sounds kind of hokey?

But we spend a lot of time together, and we appreciate each other's strengths.

I had no skills when I started, if you're interested in restoration, if you're interested in mechanical things or woodworking, come see us!