Albert William Johnston was Superintendent of the Eastern half of the Nickel Plate from the 1880's, then served in other capacities from 1916 to the early 1920's. Almost miraculously, his papers and files lasted long enough to be used by John Rehor in the writing of "The Nickel Plate Story" in 1964. For book research, I'm trying to find the Johnston papers and files. If any of you have any information about the whereabouts of these documents, or any early Cleveland Division materials, I would appreciate your help.

WJPowers

Most (some?) of Mr. Rehor's NKP materials were given to Cleveland State University:

http://www.clevelandmemory.org/nkp2/collection.html

This would be a good place to start. I spent some time tracking some Soo Line materials that were purported to be in Mr. Rehor's possession, ended up corresponding with Herb Harwood, who told me that ONLY the NKP materials went to CSU, the rest was sold by Mr. Rehor's widow, who seemed to have very little knowledge of exactly what she was selling. I never did find the material I was looking for, but perhaps the papers you are looking for were clearly identified as research materials from the NKP book project, and made their way to CSU.

Good luck.

Denis: Prior to this post, I've run down all the leads and people you suggested. I've tried the NS itself, the N&W group and VA Tech, as well. It is hard to imagine this collection would have been thrown away, but in the wrong or unknowing hands all things are possible. There also could have been some damage to the material via fire or flood. I must say this has been quite frustrating so far; but the hunt is most worthwhile.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. It's a shame this material didn't go to CSU, but my past experience with both state historical societies and universities is they want the photos, but little else. The same with fans, they want photos, drawings, but only if they show the whole car, locomotive, whatever. Which explains why so many lettering diagrams have been saved, but not the drawing that actually defines the shape of the letters.

From what I've been told, if the material didn't go to CSU, it likely wasn't purchase by a fan, either... who is going to spend real money for a box of musty paper?

Best hope is that the papers were given away by Mr. Rehor himself sometime after the book was finished... keep looking.

Good luck.

You could try and contact John Corns. I know that he purchased many OF John Rehor's negatives. I think too that Jay Williams might have too.
John Rehor was quite a collector, he had a large negative collection including many Builder's negatives from C.W. Witbeck's collection, and also Southern Railway Equipment.

Kevin K

Hi Bill!

Tony Koester may well know where Mr. Rehor's files went; both he and George Berghoff have sent me copies of pages of his NKP notes (not many).