The Last Passenger Train

Trains Magazine Passenger
1

I grew up (many years ago) in a small Illinois town. The town now has a very active Historical Society that recently published a book on the town’s history. I wrote the pages on the relationship of the town and the railroad, pointing out that the railroad made the town possible.

As a matter of general interest, I focused on the railroad’s passenger service to Manito, IL and similar small Illinois communities that the C&IM served. I had no knowledge of what else was going to be in the history book.

When I received my copy two things stood out. One was a picture used with my text that showed the last passenger train to serve the community on May 8, 1953. The other was the construction of the first paved road to link the town with the outside world. This was 1938.

Now you’ve got to take out the WWII years when people couldn’t buy autos and gas was rationed. But aside from that, that paved road sure killed those passenger trains quickly. The trains had been linking people to the outside world since 1860. But almost as soon as a viable alternative was available, people no longer used the trains.

Trains that had brought people, mail, and express to these communities were no longer chosen to do so. Leaving WWII aside, a cutback was almost immediate. Service was reduced from two trains each way per day to one in 1947. Serivice ended entirely in 1953.

People just chose to travel by car. (Before 1938 they couldn’t get to a hospital over a paved road.) The mail and express, which had arrived by train since the town was established also shifted to the paved road.

The people voted and chose the auto over the train.

As an aside, C&IM passenger service was provided with three locomotives and six cars. The loco

2

That, unfortunately, is pretty much the history of small-town non-commuter rail service. When the choice was between the train and a horse or horse-drawn vehicle, the train was faster and more convenient even if there were only two possible departure times each day. Even for short distances, a horse is a high-maintenance proposition.

Once private automobiles came along it was, “Why take the 10:15 when we can drive over and BE there by 10:15?” Paved roads made the driving even more convenient. Then, with no business, the railroad simply discontinued the service.

Not until a couple of generations later would some people become conscious of the environmental consequences of petroleum-burning vehicles. Even then, how many of your family and friends would forego the convenience of their cars in favor of riding a two-schedules-per-day local train?

Chuck

3

Railroads abandoned passenger service long before they actually stopped running passenger trains.

I rode some of the last private passenger trains.

The trains and terminals were dirty and ramshackle. If one was inclined to conspiracy theories one might think they were actively trying to discourage train travel.

4

That’s a “chicken or the egg” proposition. Did the trains get run down because the riders & their revenue left or did the run down condition drive the riders off…or both.

5

I think it was a little of both.

Railroads were in trouble, that was the height of the merger mania, and I think they just wanted to concentrate on freight.