The Indiana Railroad (IR) was the last of the typical Midwestern United States interurban lines. It was formed in 1930 by combining the operations of the five major interurban systems in central Indiana into one entity. The predecessor companies had all previously come under the control of Midland Utilities, owned by Samuel Insull. It was Insull's plan to consolidate the Indiana interurban network, modernizing the profitable routes and abandoning the unprofitable ones. With the onset of the Great Depression, the Insull empire collapsed and the Indiana Railroad was left with a decaying infrastructure and little hope for overcoming the competition of the automobile. During the 1930s the Indiana Railroad's lines were all abandoned one by one until a fatal wreck in 1941 put an end to the last operation of interurbans in Indiana.
Read more about Indiana Railroad: Predecessor Companies, Inherited Rolling Stock, New Rolling Stock, Freight Operation, Decline, End of Service, Surviving Rolling Stock
Famous quotes containing the words indiana and/or railroad:
“If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn’t be here. It’d still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“Though the railroad and the telegraph have been established on the shores of Maine, the Indian still looks out from her interior mountains over all these to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)