I visited my wife’s parents in Bloomington IN this weekend. I have been sick lately, so I decided I would quarantine myself from my inlaws and go do some rail exploring.
I went to Mitchel Indiana first, where CSX’s old Monon line connects with the old C&O line. (Ed, it would seem as though all of CSX’s tracks are coverned in weeds, even the ones on the double main in Indy).
Anyway, I followed the old Monon line up to Bedford where it connects with CP’s forsale Latta Sub. A few questions and comments:
(1) Does anyone know which railroad serves local business in Bedford? All of the tracks seem to be off the CSX line, but I don’t know if CSX bothers to send a local.
(2) Is there any local business in Bedford? By the spurs spewn all over town, it looks like Bedford was once a hot bed of rail activity. But they all looked pretty weed covered and rusty to me. A real rust belt.
(3) Does anyone know the rough time when trains come through town? The street running there looks AWESOME and I would love to see 100 car freight train crawl down mainstreet.
(4) Is it just me or is there one HECK of a grade both going out of and coming into Bedford?
The East-West CSX line is the former B&O St.Louis Division which was originally constructed as the Ohio & MIssissippi, running from the Ohio River at Cincinnati to the Mississippi River at St.Louis. The road was originally constructed to broad 5’6" guage and was made standard guage during one weekend in I believe 1871 (I could be mistaken). It subsequently became a part of the B&O Southwestern which was subsequently absorbed into the B&O proper.
I worked on a weed sprayer train last week on the Indy double main line, so those weeds should start to dissipate. It’s not a train I’d like to catch again as we can only run about 20mph to ensure good coverage and it makes for a very long day.
The entire bottom 2-3rds of Indiana has been a hotbed for Ku Klux Klan activity, especially Martinsville, and Indiana still has the highest population.
I would like to think that is a statistic that is changing though. The people here I meet seem to be really good people. A few really bad apples can give the whole state a bad rap.
Does anyone know the answer as to whether Bedford is served by a local, and who operates the local?
One of the local roads was the Chicago, Terre Haute and Southeastern. It was bought by the Milwaukee Road. These roads had lines to some of the quarries and industries in Bedford. The C.TH.&SE depot is a nice quarries stone structure in town.
The east/west line thru Bedford is the former Milwaukee Road and the north/south the former Monon. According to my copy of the U.S RAILROAD TRAFFIC ATLAS the CP comes into town from the west and runs south to Louisville with a fair level of traffic.
The Klan is alive up in the North Central part of Indiana as well. Here’s how dumb they are. I was approached by a guy who’s a recruiting member. He asked if I was interested in joining here in town. I told him,“Hey buddy, I’m Jewish.” His reply was, “Well. That don’t matter.” Then he went looking for his teeth that he left back at the liquor store.