TRAINS! 1941 last of the interurban

[W2NAP]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5BB6acTrk0

1941 the Indiana railroad interurban came to an end, 15min vid with some cool video of the IR in its last days.

[K7SGJ]

Thanks for the video.

When I watch an old video like that, and see all the old cars, I have to wonder where in the hell did they all go. I sure wouldn't mind having two or three just for fun.

[KG4CGC]

Thanks for the video.

When I watch an old video like that, and see all the old cars, I have to wonder where in the hell did they all go. I sure wouldn't mind having two or three just for fun.

Some of them are resurrected by wealthy land and business owners for personal use on private rails.

[N8YX]

Others are left in the woods to rot...sitting on stretches of track which hasn't been connected to a working railroad in many years.

I know where one such flatcar sits, maybe a mile southwest of me. It would be nice to get permission to ride the abandoned right-of-ways that haven't undergone the Rails-to-Trails revamp and which may have a hidden surprise or two tucked away on them.

[W2NAP]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Railroad

some cars have survived the years at museums

wish we had this today, be nice to ride a train to where ever in Indiana.

also the Union Traction Company was based right here in Anderson. and the old traction building still stands to this day on south Broadway just north of the river. (sits just south of the prairie farms plant) and in the parking lots you can see rails peaking out from underneath the pavement.

http://madisonrails.railfan.net/3_traction.html

History of railroads in Madison County Indiana. and somewhere on that site they have old logbooks from the UTC/IR interurban dating back to the very early 1900's

[W2NAP]

http://madisonrails.railfan.net/08interurban.html

a good read. tells of the L.E.&W. push west going though northern Madison County. and how 1 man forced the LE&W to honor the agreement they had him.

[ka4dpo]

I don't know if it's still there but a few years ago we rode on one in Elkins, WV. There is a company that does train tours of the mining country they run a steam engine ( mining engine with worm gear drive) and also an electric rail car just like the ones in the video. The electric car runs for about 20 or 30 miles then does a U turn and goes back. Lots of fun and beautiful scenery in the fall.

[ka4dpo]

Thanks for the video.

When I watch an old video like that, and see all the old cars, I have to wonder where in the hell did they all go. I sure wouldn't mind having two or three just for fun.

Here's a WIK story for you. The year before I went to college I worked for a small oil company in Newport Beach California that was owned by Mohawk Petroleum in Canada. Anyway, one day my boss gave me and another grunt an address and told us to go pick up an old truck they were going to use for a promotional run.

When we got there were knocked out. The guy had all of these beautiful old cars from the 1920's through the 1950's, he must have had at least a hundred cars from the 1930's. I asked him if he was a car collector. He said no, he restored old cars and leased them mostly to movie studios when they needed old cars to film scenes in period movies. one of the more interesting things I discovered was that many of the cars didn't run, theses were the ones they parked on the streets on movie sets. Some other cars were actually towed by cables but the camera angle was such that you couldn't see them. So that turned out to be one helluva interesting day for me.

[VE7DCW]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5BB6acTrk0

1941 the Indiana railroad interurban came to an end, 15min vid with some cool video of the IR in its last days.

Tony ..........is this the same "Indiana Railroad" that currently runs trackage and trains across Indiana to this day?

Most interesting,this looks just like the same sort of Interurban transport setup they ran in the Greater Vancouver area and here on Vancouver Island in the Greater Victoria area! ....... both area's Interurban services were discontinued in the early 1950's :(

[W3WN]

Others are left in the woods to rot...sitting on stretches of track which hasn't been connected to a working railroad in many years.

I know where one such flatcar sits, maybe a mile southwest of me. It would be nice to get permission to ride the abandoned right-of-ways that haven't undergone the Rails-to-Trails revamp and which may have a hidden surprise or two tucked away on them.

There's a deadline at least a mile long behind the roundhouse on the New Hope & Ivyland. It's full of old rail cars, box cars, at one time a couple of old ex-Army 0-6-0 switchers (I think those were finally sold off or scrapped about 10 years ago)... all "stored", all left to rot.

Some are (technically) owned by individuals or private groups. Technicalities aside, most appear abandoned.

You'll find stashes of old stuff all over the place, if you look. There was also a lot of stuff stashed on the Black River & Western, at the Ringoes yard. It was very sad to see the current state of the PRR 4666 Doodlebug; it will take a massive overhaul to ever get the poor thing running again.

Now, the good news is that some of the interurban cars are saved and on display at museums. The Trolley Museum down in Washington County, adjacent to the County Fairgrounds, not only has a large display, but a working track that they actually run a lot of the cars on. Really fun to watch!