Butler Branch (Indiana)

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The Butler Branch is a historic railroad that operated in Indiana.

The line was operated as the Vandalia Railroad and later as the Eel River Railroad, thus it was also known as the "Eel River Route" or "Eel River Line".

A wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), the line connected Logansport northeast to Butler, where trackage rights allowed PRR trains to continue over the Wabash Railroad's Huntington District and Montpelier District to Toledo, Ohio.

In Logansport, the Butler Branch began at a junction with the South Bend Branch, with access to the Effner Branch and I&F Branch. The line crossed the Chicago to Pittsburgh Main Line at Columbia City and the Grand Rapids Branch at LaOtto.[1][2]

Contents

[edit] History

Early History The first attempt to construct a railroad along the Eel River was by the Toledo, Logansport & Northern Rail Road in 1856, however was unsuccessful. In 1872 the section between Denver and Auburn was opened, On October 18, 1873 the section between Auburn and Butler was completed.[3] The entire line opened in 1874, completed by the Detroit, Eel River and Illinois Rail Road.[4] The company was reorganized in 1877 as the Eel River Railroad,[5].

The Wabash Railroad controversy Struggling financially, on August 26, 1879 the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway signed a 99 year lease agreement with the railroad.[6] This lease worked out profitably for the Wabash, giving the Wabash a direct line from Detroit to its main line at Logansport,[citation needed] and used the line as their connecting link between Saint Louis, Missouri, and the east coast. Problems occurred by in 1890 with the lease agreement when the Wabash leased the 9.63-mile Peru & Detroit Railway running between Peru and Chili to ease movements with a connecting line from Chili to Peru, abandoning the line between Chili and Logansport. Logansport resident bondholders, in outage, began a ten year legal battle.

A court ruled that the Eel River Railroad's charter was forfeited by its lease to a competing company (the Wabash), giving the bondholders regaining control of the railroad.[7] The Wabash continued to use the line on an interim lease until 1902, when the Wabash completed a 25.6-mile line between New Haven and Butler.

The Vandalia Railroad era With local shareholders back in control, the line was reorganized as the Logansport and Toledo Railway and bought by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1901,[8] when operations were transferred to the PRR's Terre Haute and Indianapolis Railroad. This gave the PRR a route between St. Louis and Toledo, at via a connection with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway at Butler.[9] In 1905, the Logansport and Toledo was merged with other lines (including the Terre Haute and Indianapolis) to form the Vandalia Railroad, a new operating subsidiary of the PRR.[10]

The Vandalia gained trackage rights over the Wabash from Butler into Toledo's Union Station on June 1, 1913, allowing for through freight and passenger service from Toledo to St. Louis and Chicago.[11] The Vandalia was merged into the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad on January 1, 1917,[12] and the Pennsylvania Railroad began operating the branch directly on January 1, 1921 with a lease of the PCC&StL.[13]

Abandonment As the Vandalia line, the track gave purely local services, and business declined as did the quality of the rail line. With an embargo placed on the line between Auburn and Butler due to poor conditions, abandonment of the line began in 1954 with complete abandonment by 1977.[14] [15]

[edit] Cities and towns along the Butler Branch Railroad

All cities and towns in Indiana

Schwalm Hall of Manchester College was built in [1961] when then the railroad was still in operation, and known for being on "the other side of the tracks."[16]

[edit] Recent Developments

Since completely abandoned in 1977, the ground which laid the railroad has been left mostly untouched, leaving behind a ghostly touch of the past. Most of the larger bridges have been removed, but many of the smaller wooden bridges covering creeks remain. In Logansport, the path of the line has been turned into a 1.3 mile asphalt surface trail, called the River Bluff Trail[19], and a similar effort is in the works between South Whitley and Columbia City, called the Eel River Trail.[20]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pennsylvania Railroad, ca. 1925 and 1941 Division Accounting Maps, Fort Wayne Division
  2. ^ Pennsylvania Railroad, Form CT1000, List of Stations and Sidings and Instructions for Making Reports to the Superintendent Car ServicePDF, 1945
  3. ^ Elmer Griffith Sulzer, Elmer Griffith. Ghost Railroads of Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. 152-53
  4. ^ PRR Chronology, 1874PDF (95.9 KiB), March 2005 Edition
  5. ^ PRR Chronology, 1877PDF (156 KiB), June 2006 Edition
  6. ^ Simmons, Richard S. and Francis H. Parker. Railroads of Indiana. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997.
  7. ^ PRR Chronology, 1900PDF (59.2 KiB), March 2005 Edition
  8. ^ PRR Chronology, 1901PDF (74.1 KiB), March 2005 Edition
  9. ^ PRR Chronology, 1902PDF (91.0 KiB), March 2005 Edition
  10. ^ PRR Chronology, 1905PDF (73.4 KiB), March 2005 Edition
  11. ^ PRR Chronology, 1913PDF (55.5 KiB), February 2005 Edition
  12. ^ PRR Chronology, 1917PDF (110 KiB), June 2004 Edition
  13. ^ PRR Chronology, 1921PDF (100 KiB), June 2004 Edition
  14. ^ Simmons, Richard S. and Francis H. Parker. Railroads of Indiana. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997.
  15. ^ PRR Chronology, 1953PDF (48.7 KiB), December 2004 Edition
  16. ^ Jones, Timothy K., Manchester College: A Century of Faith, Learning, and Service. North Manchester, IN: Manchester College, 1989. 141
  17. ^ While railroad ran through Collamer, it was not listed as a town in Sulzer
  18. ^ Sulzer, Elmer Griffith. Ghost Railroads of Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. 152
  19. ^ Eel River Trail, http://www.riverblufftrail.org/ RiverBluffTrail.com], http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc28661.php Logansport, IN : River Bluff Trail Downtown]
  20. ^ Manley, Becky, "Whitley group hopes to develop trail," The Journal Gazette Sun, Nov. 26, 2006 PDF of article at Indianatrails.org, Zartman Roman, Jennifer, "Donor gifts land to Eel River Trail project" The Post and Mail (Columbia City, Indiana) Article at Post & Mail Website

[edit] Sources

  • Elmer Griffith Sulzer, Elmer Griffith. "Butler to Auburn, Churubusco to Columbia City (Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad; Philadelphia, Balitmore & Washington Railroad)." Ghost Railroads of Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. 152-53
  • Simons, Richard S. and Francis H. Parker. "The Eel River: Litigation Unlimited." Railroads of Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. 211-13.
  • Simons, Richard S. "The Eel River and Its Railroad." National Railway Bulletin 53, no. 6 (1988), pp. 28-35.
  • "Eel River Line to Eel River Trail" EelRiverTrail.com [1]
  • "Photos of the rail line area today in Whitley County, Indiana," [2]