Decline and Abandonment
Competition with a growing population of automobiles riding on state paved highways and Depression caused growing unemployment led to a decline in C&LE passenger business. Freight business remained adequate, but the Lake Shore Electric connection at Toledo was an essential link to shippers in Cleveland. In 1938, LSE's freight agents and handlers struck for higher pay. The LSE had no funds to survive a strike and it immediately shut down and began to dismantle. For the C&LE this meant a dramatic collapse in its freight business. It hung on briefly by trying to work with trucking lines to replace the LSE, but it could no longer operate the guaranteed next morning at 8am schedule. The C&LE abandoned a few months later in 1939. Although there is little in the present literature regarding the LSE agent's strike, obviously their union did not expect it to lead to LSE's total abandonment with permanent unemployment for both the agents and everyone else employed by the LSE, a very dire situation in the middle of the Depression with 25% national unemployment. This strike brought down the LSE in 1938, the C&LE in 1939, and eventually the Indiana Railroad in 1941.
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