Monon Railroad

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Monon Railroad
Reporting marks	CIL, MON
Locale	Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky
Dates of operation	1847 – 1971
Successor line	Louisville and Nashville
Track gauge	4 ft 8½ in (1435 mm) (standard gauge)
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois

The Monon Railroad (AAR reporting marks CIL, MON), also known as the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway from 1897-1956, operated almost entirely within the state of Indiana. The Monon was merged into the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in 1971, and much of the former Monon right of way is operated today by CSX Transportation.

[edit] Monon route

The railroad earned the name Monon due to the convergence of its four main routes in Monon, IN. From Monon, the mainlines reached out to Chicago, Michigan City, Indiana, Indianapolis and Louisville. In Chicago, the Monon's passenger trains served Dearborn Station. Smaller branches connected points on the Louisville mainline to Victoria, Indiana and French Lick, Indiana.

The Monon directly served five colleges and universities along its line:

• Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana
• Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana
• DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana
• Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana
• Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana

The university traffic was important enough to the Monon, that the railroad used the schools' colors on its rolling stock as the railroad's official paint schemes. The red and gray of Wabash College (and very similar to the colors of Indiana University) was used on the railroad's passenger equipment, and the black and gold used by both DePauw University and Purdue University adorned the railroad's diesel freight locomotives.

The Monon line was unusual in that its main line ran down the middle of streets in several cities, most notably Lafayette, New Albany and Bedford. It also installed an unusual "home grown" warning signal at many grade crossings; these utilized a green signal light (similar to and adapted from a standard highway traffic signal) that stayed lit at all times, except when a train was approaching. A sign below or to the side of the signal read, "STOP When Signal Is Out." This design had an inherent fail-safe mechanism, in that when the signal bulb was burned out, an approaching vehicle driver would assume a train was coming — and, it must be assumed, that same driver would eventually realize there was no train and just a burned-out signal after a sufficient time.

[edit] Timeline

• 1847: The New Albany & Salem Railroad is organized with James Brooks as president.
• 1854: The NA&S trackage stretches from the Ohio River (at New Albany) to the Great Lakes (at Michigan City).
• 1859: The overextended and struggling NA&S is reorganized as the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railway.
• April 30, 1865: The LNA&C becomes one of twenty railroads to haul Abraham Lincoln's funeral train, from Lafayette, Indiana to Michigan City, Indiana.
• 1881: The LNA&C consolidates with the Indianapolis & Chicago Air Line, and the trackage of the new division is soon extended to reach into its namesake cities.
• July 1, 1897: The LNA&C is reorganized as the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway Co.
• 1932: The 300 pound (136 kg) Monon Bell is first presented as the trophy of the annual football matchup between DePauw University and Wabash College.
• 1946: John W. Barriger III becomes President of the Monon, bringing aggressive plans for modernization.

Restored Monon boxcar CIL 1620 at the Linden Railroad Museum, Linden, Indiana. The former Monon mainline is in the background.

• June 29, 1949: Final day of steam locomotive service, as the Monon becomes one of the first Class I railroads to fully convert to diesel motive power.
• January 11, 1956: The CI&L officially adopts its longtime nickname, Monon, as corporate title.
• 1959: The Monon's passenger service between Chicago, Illinois and Indianapolis, Indiana is discontinued.
• September 30, 1967: Final day of regularly-scheduled passenger train service on the Monon.
• July 31, 1971: The Monon is merged into the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.
• 1999: Portions of the line around Indianapolis were converted to a bicycle and pedestrian trail known as the Monon Trail.

[edit] The line today

The remains of the line are operated by CSX Transportation. Large segments have been abandoned in recent years: most of the line from Monon southeast to Indianapolis, the line north from Monon to Michigan City, and the line segment between Cloverdale and Bedford (this segment was abandoned largely due to a washout). A portion of the French Lick branch is now home to a railroad museum, with part of the line wired for trolley service.

Between Bedford and Mitchell, CSX owns the line but does not operate any of its own trains. The only service comes from trains of the Canadian Pacific Railway, whose Latta Subdivision connects with the former Monon at Bedford. CPR operates over the old Monon from Bedford to Louisville through trackage rights negotiated by the Latta Sub's original owner, The Milwaukee Road, when the L&N took over the Monon. Those trackage rights went from the Milwaukee Road to its buyer, The Soo Line; "The Soo" was later merged into the CPR. (As of early 2006, CPR is negotiating the sale of the Latta Sub to the Indiana Rail Road; this sale is expected to be consummated in June 2006, with the CPR trackage rights being transferred to INRD.) CSX does operate trains between Louisville and St. Louis, Missouri over the Louisville-Mitchell segment; these trains have to make an unusual reverse movement to go from the Monon to the former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line to St. Louis, owing to an unfavorable track arrangement at the crosing of the lines in Mitchell.

The Monon's original semaphore signals are still in operation between Salem and Mitchell, and also from Crawfordsville to near Lafayette. These are some of the last semaphore signals remaining in mainline operation in the United States.

Amtrak's combined Cardinal and Hoosier State trains traverse the former Monon from Crawfordsville to the Indiana state line near Chicago, with one train in each direction daily. Station stops along the former Monon include Lafayette, Rensselaer and Dyer.

The line through Lafayette was relocated in 2000 to an alignment along the Wabash River, parallel to the similarly-relocated Norfolk Southern Railroad line. Previously, the Monon line ran down the middle of Fifth Street, with a hotel serving as its passenger station well into the Amtrak era.

The Monon Line has been abandoned in Hammond and Munster north of the junction with the Canadian National Railway (former Grand Trunk Western Railroad), and the corridor is being considered as part of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's proposal for the West Lake Corridor to Lowell and Valparaiso, Indiana.[1]

All of the Monon's street-running segments remain, except for the relocated Lafayette trackage. The last of the Monon's green-light grade crossing signals was apparently removed from service at a crossing a few miles north of New Albany in 2004, though this cannot be confirmed as the last such installation — many of those signals were installed on lightly-traveled roads, out of notice of all but the most dedicated railfan.

[edit] References

• Dolzall, Gary W., and Dolzall, Stephen F. Monon: The Hoosier Line, Interurban Press (1987).
• Hilton, George. Monon Route, Howell-North Books (1978).

[edit] External links

• Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society