From the Illinois border with Indiana, the various twisted routes into Chicago are pretty clear. But I got wondering how the most well-known six railroads – NYC, PRR, B&O, Erie, Wabash and NKP – came through Indiana.
At one time, over 40 railroads crisscrossed Indiana, as seen in the following Library of Congress map.
I decided to hand trace the routes of the six previously mentioned railroads to highlight their passage through the state. I marked the routes to easily identify the track routes.
All six of these passenger railroads left New York and made their way through Pennsylvania and Ohio before entering Indiana. Once in Indiana, they west-northwest to a corridor near the Illinois state line bordered on the north by Gary and on the south by Hammond.
The New York Central had two routes to Chicago through Indiana. You note the one through Ohio that passed below Lake Erie. The other cut over through southern Ontario for a stop in Detroit. From there it went to Ann Arbor, Jackson, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo to Niles, MI and then cut through only the NW corner of Indiana. I think it’s the one hugging the shoreline and passing through Michigan City that may be noted as the Michigan Central. It carried at least two trains a day (each way) to New York City. The Michigan Central merely owned the right-of-way.
Thanks, John. I was trying to trace the route of the passenger trains. My understanding is that the New York Central used the so-called Water Level Route, running south of Lake Erie. Is that correct?
B&O trains took a rather round about route from NYC to Chicago. Leaving NYC (and later from the Jersey City terminal) trains went to Philly, Baltimore and Washington DC, before heading west to Pittsburgh and on to Chicago.
The two trains I’m speaking of through Detroit were passenger hauls. One was the “Wolverine”, the other was the “Twilight Limited”. Both were full service. I know of the Water Level Route, but don’t recall what the NYC called their route through Ontario from Niagra Falls through Detroit. Someone else here will opine shortly, I’m sure.
I try to research this stuff carefully before posting, but I am always willing to learn in the event that I state something incorrectly. Sometimes it is difficult to find answers to questions about stuff like passenger trains when so many of them seemed to be discontinued in the 1970s.
The B&O did not have trackage in central PA. The original mainline went from Batimore to St Louis. Then later branched off in western Maryland to Pittsburgh and on to Chicago.
They also never had trackage into NYC, and in 1926 the PRR ended their trackage rights lease into Penn Station. So from then on B&O service to NYC was actually to Jersey City via Reading and CNJ trackage. From the Jersey City terminal you could get directly on a ferry to Manhattan.
You are welcome. So while you could ride the B&O from NYC to Chicago, and may want to for the level of service the trains were known for, the real traffic on the B&O was NYC to DC, and DC or Baltimore to Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St Louis.
You operate on the route you have. B&O owned track only went as far East as Philadelphia and there was a agreement between the B&O, RDG and CNJ to operate trains to Jersey City.
While the B&O showed their schedules from New York to Chicago, in reality those were actually two differently consisted trains - one consist between New York and Washington and a different consist from Washington to Chicago. While I am sure there were those the used the service end to end, there were really two marketing efforts by the B&O, one for the New York to Washington market and competing against the PRR for the traffic. The other marketing effort was Washington to Chicago and it was marketed very differently.
B&O passenger marketing for through service to Washington was heavily involved in devising school trips to the Nations Capital - during the late 1950’s and early 60’s when our family lived in Garrett, IN - The Eastbound Capitol Limited would arrive Garrett for its station stop and adding boiler water and would generally have two or three additional coaches of school trips to the capital. One could hear from the outside they were having a ‘high old time’, in the time before getting high involved pharmaceuticals. Riding the Capitol for my trips to Chicago - the school travelers were fully zonked out as the Capitol would leave Garrett at 0530.
The B&O’s original route from Baltimore to Chicago excluded Washington and went through Cumberland, Grafton, Wheeling, Columbus and Chicago Jct. (now known as Willard) and then on to Chicago
Was B&O able to compete with the bigger lines, namely NYC and PRR or was the B&O not really in competition with the big guys for passenger services to and from Chicago?
B&O operated 8 trains a day, each way between Washington and New York and ended that operation on April 26, 1958; in concert with abandoning passenger service East of Baltimore, the company undertook a project of replacing the double track current of traffic signaled line into a single track CTC operation from Bayview in East Baltimore to RG Tower in Philadelphia.
The B&O operated passenger service between Baltimore/Washington to Chicago and St. Louis until the creation of Amtrak in 1971.
That depends on where you were coming from or going to. I’m sure lots of Washington politicians and Baltimore business men road and prefered the B&O.
Baltimore was an important place back then, a major manufacturing center and home to lots of important big companies. GM had a major assembly plant here, McCormick Spice, Bethlehem Steel, Western Electric, Bendix, Westinghouse, Seagram’s, Timex, Proctor/Silex, just to name a few. Lots of workers and lots of executives with business to do all over the country.
The New York Central line through Ontario from Buffalo / Niagara Falls to Windsor/Detroit was originally the Canada Southern Ry., later the Canada Southern division of Michigan Central, which was part of the New York Central System.
Important to remember c.1940 NYC ran something like 18 daily passenger trains just from New York to Chicago, using both routes. Add to that shorter passenger trains that ran on only part of the lines, other major trains like the Southwest Limited (NYC - St. Louis) and “M&E” trains (Mail and Express - which were considered passenger trains) and you get a LOT of trains every day!
BTW for part of it’s history, the Empire State Express ran through Ontario.
