Looking for a new railroad museum site to display and operate your equipment?

Trains Magazine Steam & Preservation
1

The last operating remnant of the Indiana Railroad interurban is the Indiana Southern Railway, not to be confused with Gennesie & Wyoming’s Indianapolis - Evansville, IN, Indiana Southern Railroad.

The Southern Indiana Railway Company runs from a CSX interchane at Watson, Indiana five miles to Speed, Indiana, where it serves the Louisville Cement Company.

The Louisville Cement Company plans to close down this pkant in 2022. While we can hope the railroad will find another industry to take its place, closure of this ralroad is a possibility. In any case, it just might be great site for an operating railroad museum.

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How close is the Southern Indiana Railway to a sizable city? That’s an important consideration on museum suitability.

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Very close to Louisville

4

When I worked Watson in 1966, the SI would bring about 20 loads of cement to Watson from Speed to interchange to the B&O. Cincinnati 94 out of Louisville would pick them up and take them to Cincinnati for furtherance. Louisville 97 would set off the empties for the SI to take back to Speed for loading.

5

I think ditto today, but CSX instead of B&O. Five days each week.

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Perhaps even more important, very very close to the route of I-65 north from Louisville. The Kentucky Railroad Museum in New Haven is many times further from I-65 (either via exit 91 or exit 105). Traffic from a variety of directions funnels to connect with this road via the Watterson Expressway.

7

SI may still interchange with CSX at Watson, however CSX no longer operates from Watson to North Vernon to connect with the Cincinnati - St. Louis main line.

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Where is Watson service based now?

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Suspect a job out of Louisville would come to Watson and potentially on to Jeffersonville to service any business that still remains.

10

The raiiway is now out of business. Shut down. I hope a reader can visit and report.

Perhaps even print and use the letter I had hoped to send.

David Lloyd ben Taacov Yehuda Klepper, Yeshivat Beit Orot, Shmuel ben Adiya 1, Jerusalem 97400, Israel Phone: 972-51-215-0532, email: daveklepper@yahoo.com

Management of the Southern Indiana Railway

Speed, Indiana, USA

Dear Railroaders,

Have you ever considered the potential of your ralroad as an historic tourist attraction? Instead of or in addition to freight business, a non-profit educational society can display and operate equipment and contribute to maintenance of the railroad’s physical plant.

The ultimate goal might be to recreate the genuine experience of riding the Indiana Railroad interurban in one of its high-speed lightweight cars. Two genuine cars still exist, one at Maine’s Seashore Trolley Musuen and one at the Illinois Railway, but neither has a track long enough to give a rider any idea of an actual experience of riding the interurban. Five miles can allow tge cars to get to speed and can represent a prototype operation between two typical stops.

Brookville Engineering, Brookville, PA, can build two replicas of the Indiana Hihjhspeeds by using as raw material, two-to-four cars being retired by the New York City Transit Authority, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Chicago Transit Authority, and Newcastle, England’s, Tyne and Wear Metro.

You can begin small by simply offering a few round-trips behind your existing diesels with whatever coach is most readily available or even a caboose.

And electric operation might most easily be started by using a diesel locomotive as the source of electric power. And Brookville has on-hand two Philadelphia Suburban Red Arrow 1947 suburban cars owned by San Frascisco’s MUN

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The Lehigh Valley Transit 1030 from Indiana Railroad, now at the Seashore Yrolley Moseum, shown in 1948 at Allentown’s Fairview Yard before conversion to coach seating: