Butler Branch (Indiana)
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The Butler Branch was a rail line owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad in the U.S. state of Indiana. The line ran from 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. It began at the South Bend Branch in Logansport, with easy access to the Effner Branch and I&F Branch, and crossed the Chicago to Pittsburgh Main Line at Columbia City and Grand Rapids Branch at La Otto.[1][2]
The entire line has been abandoned.[citation needed]
[edit] History
The entire line opened in 1874, completed by the Detroit, Eel River and Illinois Rail Road.[3] The company was reorganized in 1877 as the Eel River Railroad,[4] and was leased to the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway in 1887, giving the Wabash a direct line from Detroit to its main line at Logansport.[citation needed] In 1897, a court ruled that the Eel River Railroad's charter was forfeited by its lease to a competing company (the Wabash).[5] It was reorganized as the Logansport and Toledo Railway and bought by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1901,[6] though the Wabash continued to operate it until 1902, 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.[7] (The Wabash later built a line from Butler south to its main line at New Haven to replace the line to Logansport.[citation needed]) 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.[8] 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.[9] The Vandalia was merged into the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad on January 1, 1917,[10] and the Pennsylvania Railroad began operating the branch directly on January 1, 1921 with a lease of the PCC&StL.[11]
The line east of Auburn was abandoned in 1953.[12]
[edit] References
- ^ Pennsylvania Railroad, ca. 1925 and 1941 Division Accounting Maps, Fort Wayne Division
- ^ Pennsylvania Railroad, Form CT1000, List of Stations and Sidings and Instructions for Making Reports to the Superintendent Car ServicePDF, 1945
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1874PDF (95.9 KiB), March 2005 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1877PDF (156 KiB), June 2006 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1900PDF (59.2 KiB), March 2005 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1901PDF (74.1 KiB), March 2005 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1902PDF (91.0 KiB), March 2005 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1905PDF (73.4 KiB), March 2005 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1913PDF (55.5 KiB), February 2005 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1917PDF (110 KiB), June 2004 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1921PDF (100 KiB), June 2004 Edition
- ^ PRR Chronology, 1953PDF (48.7 KiB), December 2004 Edition
