Vandalia Railroad (1905–1917)

The Terre Haute and Richmond Railroad was chartered in January 1847, with construction starting in late 1849.

Burnside, major General in the Union Army during the Civil War, was an early promoter of the railroad.

[1] Completed in 1874, between Logansport and Butler, Indiana, the Detroit, Eel River and Illinois had been planned as a farm-to-market road.

The line was double-tracked for much of its length, serving the coal region of southern Illinois, and as a passenger route for the Pennsylvania Railroad's Blue Ribbon named trains, The St Louisan, the Jeffersonian, and the Spirit of St.

Passenger trains were operated, including football specials for the University of Notre Dame.

Despite the shutdown of most Studebaker operations in South Bend in December of 1963, abandonment was delayed until the Conrail consolidation.

At that time, Conrail had three routes to/through South Bend and the Vandalia Railroad was deemed redundant.

It has been abandoned piecemeal from the city border northward, with online industries served from trains based on the former NYC territory.

Into the 2000s a remannt of the Vandalia Line and its connection to the former NYC tracks on the west were retained in South Bend to just past Ewing Avenue by Norfolk Southern to service Hanson Cold Storage.

The former spur to Hanson Storage just south of Ewing Avenue that came off the Vandalia line is still in place.

The depot in Plymouth, IN, which served both the Vandalia Line to South Bend as well as the PRR mainline to Chicago is still in place and owned by CSX.