Monon Two for Tuesday

For several years the Indiana Transportation Museum operated in excursion service an F7A locomotive painted in the livery of the Monon Railroad. The unit was actually a former Milwaukee Road locomotive. ITM later repainted No. 83 into a livery paying tribute to the Nickel Plate Road.

The two images above were made in Worthington, Indiana, on Aug. 29 1998. The occasion was an excursion train between Indianapolis and Worthington on the Indiana Southern Railroad that ran to Worthington behind ex-NKP 2-8-2 light Mikado No. 587. It returned to Indy behind No. 83.

The excursion traveled on a former Pennsylvania Railroad route that once extended from Indianapolis to Vincennes, Indiana, and was best known for its coal traffic.

Photographs by Craig Sanders

No Passenger Trains to Pull

We’re looking around the yard in Lafayette, Indiana, that once was used by the Monon Railroad. Something out of the ordinary to see today is EMD E7A No. 790, which is being stored here. In case you’re wondering how Louisville & Nashville passenger varnish wound up here, the L&N at this time owned the former Monon.

In its early years, Amtrak assigned former L&N E units to its Chicago-Florida South Wind and it passed through Lafayette on the former New York Central for several months until being rerouted in January 1972.

Interestingly, that train, renamed the Floridian in November 1971, would stop in Lafayette on the former Monon between March 1975 and its discontinuance in early October 1979.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Museum Won’t Repaint BL2s Into Monon Colors

The Monon Railroad was among a handful of operators of EMD’s BL2 locomotive.

Although an Indiana railroad museum has acquired a pair of the units it has no plans to repaint them into Monon colors.

Instead the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum plans to keep them in their Bangor & Aroostook livery because the locomotives were originally delivered to that road.

The units, Nos. 52 and 56, arrived in North Judson, Indiana, in June. They had most recently operated on the Saratoga & North Creek, a New York State tourist railroad.

No. 52 was fired up on July 14 and reportedly ran pretty well despite having sat dead for three years. The unit has a few water leads that need to be fixed.

No. 56 has electrical problems that need to be resolved but that work is not expected to begin until No. 52 is operating and gains a Federal Railroad Administration blue card.

Museum officials have received many requests that No. 52 and 56 be repainted in Monon black and gold, but they say they want to maintain the historical accuracy of the locomotives.

One Monon BL2 has survived and is in the collection of the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven, Kentucky. The Monon once had nine BL2 in service.

The Hoosier Valley Museum does have three pieces of former Monon equipment.

They include an SW1 switcher, steel transfer caboose 81551 and a 40-foot steel boxcar built in 1941.

Museum to Add New Cab to Switcher

An Indiana railroad museum plans to restore a badly damaged SW1 switch engine that lost its cab after a truck carrying it struck a low bridge in 2018.

The Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum has found a replacement cab that will be mounted on former Monon DS-50.

The locomotive’s original cab was destroyed after striking the bridge in Logansport, Indiana, in December 2018.

The DS-50 was recently moved to the museum in North Judson after sitting in Logansport for more than two years.

“We’ve been working on saving this locomotive for almost a year now,” museum president Todd Flanigan said in a statement.

 “There’s no way for me to fully express my gratitude to everyone involved in making this project a reality.”

The locomotive is not owned by the museum but its owner has agreed to the rebuild project.

The museum also plans to restore a former Monon transfer caboose, No. 81551, which was built in the railroad’s Lafayette, Indiana, shops in 1946.

Permanent Stop Indication at Milepost 272

The Monon Railroad was known for its semaphore signals, some of which lasted well into the 21st century.

CSX replaced the last working semaphores on the north end of the ex-Monon north of Crawfrodsville, Indiana, with modern signals in December 2010.

But semaphores remained in place on the south end of the ex-Monon on the CSX Hoosier Subdivision.

However, CSX stopped using the Hoosier Sub in 2009 aside from a short segment of track in New Albany, Indiana, just north of Louisville.

In December 2017 CSX filed with the Surface Transportation Board for authority to abandon most of the Hoosier Sub and that request was granted.

In the meantime, some of the semaphore blades on the Hoosier Sub had been stolen.

Online reports indicate that the last pair of blades still intact on their masts were located in Campbellsburg, Indiana.

On a recent Sunday during an expedition to see what is left of the Hoosier Sub I found those blades still set to a stop indication in both direction in Campbellsburg.

The tracks are still in place, although passing sidings had been removed.

Indiana Trail Funds has indicated its interest in converting the former Monon right of way into a trail.

At some point a salvage company will pull up these rails and take down these signals which over the years saw trains of the Monon, Louisville & Nashville, Amtrak, Seaboard System, Milwaukee Road, Soo Line and the Indiana Rail Road pass by.

Today they stand displaying in essence a permanent stop indication.

Indiana Monon Station at Risk

The former Monon depot in Bedford, Indiana, in July 1992. The track in the foreground connected the former Milwaukee Road with the former Monon. At the time, Soo Line operated two trains a day over this connection.

The former Monon passenger station in Bedford, Indiana, is at risk of demolition due to its dilapidated condition a preservation group has warned.

The station was built in 1926 of Indiana limestone. Bedford is the self-style “Limestone Capital of the World” and the Monon over the years shipped tons of the stone that was used to build numerous buildings across the country.

Passenger service at the depot ended in 1967, but the building housed an operator for several years afterwards.

After railroad use of the depot ended, Lawrence County officials began using it as a recycling center.

That use has since ended and the station has become a target for vandals. Deteriorating soffits are endangering the tile roof.

Community leaders and trail advocates have expressed interest in transforming the station into as a trail head for the Milwaukee Road Transportation Trailway, which is built on the former right of way of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul branch that once served Bedford.

The former Milwaukee Road passenger station has been preserved and converted into an information center, gathering space, and trail head for the Limestone Trail System.

Officials hope that saving the Monon Station could spur similar investment in the north edge of Downtown Bedford.

They have cautioned that preservation of the depot needs to occur soon before further deterioration makes preservation of the structure even more difficult and expensive.

Railroad Photo Exhibit Set at Indiana Library

An exhibit of railroad photographs is being hosted by the Frankfort, Indiana, public library Jan 4 to 29^th.

Titled Workin’ on the Railroad, the exhibit will feature 30 images. A reception to celebrate the exhibit will be held on Jan. 11 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The library is in downtown Frankfort at 208 W Clinton St., about a five minute drive from Interstate 65.

Frankfort once hosted a substantial yard and shops operated by the Nickel Plate Road, which intersected in town the Pennsylvania Railroad line between Chicago and Indianapolis.

The Monon route between Chicago and Indianapolis also once passed through Frankfort but has been abandoned.

Both rail lines are still in place although the former PRR line is a CSX industrial track that is abandoned a few miles north of town.

Norfolk Southern operates the former NKP line.

Ghost of the Monon Meets Ghost of the Pennsy

For a fleeting moment in Linden, Indiana, the ghost of the Monon met the ghost of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The occasion was the passage of the final trip of Amtrak’s Hoosier State from Indianapolis to Chicago.

Two former PRR passenger cars were chartered to operate on the final trip including the Frank Thomson, a blunt end observation car. Thomson was the sixth president of the Pennsy.

I didn’t plan to get a reflection of a retired Monon semaphore signal in the window of the Thomson as the Hoosier State passed this railroad museum located at the restored joint Monon-Nickel Plate road passenger station.

But sometimes you get lucky.

Up and Down the Monon

The Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railroad — better known as the Monon — once operated 603 miles of track before it was merged into the Louisville & Nashville in 1971.

It’s primary route was between Chicago and Louisville, Kentucky, with branches extended to Indianapolis, French Lick, Indiana, and Michigan City, Indiana.

However, all of the track it owned was entirely in Indiana with the Monon relying on terminal railroads to reach Chicago and Louisville.

The Monon had a circular herald of red and white, which were the colors used in the post World War II era for passenger train equipment. The logo featured the railroad’s name and slogan “The Hoosier Line” as well as the letter M and an arrowhead.

The latter was a nod to the belief that Monon was a Potowatomi Indian word meaning “swift running.”

The CSX locomotive with the Monon herald on the side of its nose came westward last week on the New Castle Subdivision.

Akron Railroad Club Vice President Todd Dillon caught up with it in Kent.

Photographs by Todd Dillon

INRD Seeks to Give up Trackage Rights

In what may be the first step toward abandonment of the CSX Hoosier Subdivision in Southern Indiana, the Indiana Rail Road is seeking regulatory approval to end its trackage rights on the line.

INRD was the last user of the route, but has not moved traffic over for more than two years.

In is filing with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, INRD said its network has been physically disconnected from the Hoosier Sub after it abandoned 22.8 miles of a former Milwaukee Road line in 2011 between Bedford and Crane, Indiana.

The Hoosier Sub, which was once part of the Chicago-Louisville, Kentucky, route of the Monon, extends for 72 miles between Bedford and New Albany, Indiana.

Most of the Hoosier Sub is out of service except for a portion of it in the New Albany region.

If the STB grants the INRD’s petition, the trackage rights would be discontinued on July 27.

CSX decommissioned the Hoosier Sub in November 2010 after a trestle over the White River south of Bedford burned, in what officials reported to be a suspicious blaze.

There were plans for the State of Indiana to buy the line but a local port authority was unable to raise enough money for that purpose.

The ex-Monon has been abandoned and the track removed between Bedford and Cloverdale, Indiana.