Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad - Essential Interurban Connections

Essential Interurban Connections

At Toledo, the C&LE interchanged with two other interurban lines: the Lake Shore Electric which ran to Cleveland, and the Eastern Michigan Railway, which ran to Detroit. Briefly both Cleveland and Detroit saw the red C&LE passenger cars on their streets. But the serious money generating plan for the C&LE was to run freight and express from southern and central Ohio to Cleveland on a "next morning 8am" schedule. This service could not be equaled by competing steam railroads, and for a few years it was a successful formula. The General Motors Frigidaire plant at Moraine shipped refrigerators on the C%LE. Also at Toledo the C&LE interchanged with the Eastern Michigan Railways interurban to move freight the forty seven miles to/from Detroit. These interchange connections were essential to the C&LE, but both companies were financially weak. Eastern Michigan Railway abandoned operations in 1932; the LSE in 1938. The loss of the Eastern Michigan in 1932 hurt, but the loss of the Lakeshore Electric in 1938 was fatal to the Cincinnati and Lake Erie.

Similar to the Conway plan of combining weak Ohio interurban lines to create a strong one, in Indiana five marginal lines had been combined in 1929 to form the Indiana Railroad. The IR did much the same in Indiana as the C&LE had done earlier in Ohio: it purchased new lightweight passenger cars based upon the Red Devil design, improved facilities and equipment, and energetically worked to increase freight business. Interchange with other interurban companies was essential. The very important C&LE connection at Dayton and the IR connection at Richmond, Indiana, was the Dayton & Western Traction Company. Dayton and Western's main line ran from Dayton almost arrow straight adjacent to U.S.Route 40 west to Richmond, Indiana, where it connected to the Indiana Railroad to provide joint operation of interurban freight and passenger trains between Dayton and Indianapolis, a total of 108 miles. During the economically good years of the 1920s, Dayton and Western's express trains with parlor cars ran as name trains from Dayton to Indianapolis with such names as the "Buckeye Special" and the "Hoosier." D&W also had an hourly daily schedule of local trains between Dayton and Richmond into the early 1930s. Dayton and Western interchanged with the C&LE at Dayton. In the 1930s, the Dayton and Western was very weak financially. Determined to assure that it remained in business, both the C&LE and the Indiana Railroad leased and operated it at different times. By 1937, neither had the funds to continue the lease arrangement, so the then unsubsidized Dayton and Western quit running in 1937, severing the C&LE-IR connection. This was a serious blow to the remaining interurbans because earlier, the less important Lima,Ohio to Ft.Wayne,Indiana C&LE-IR connection was lost when the IR had to abandon its line in 1935. All Ohio interurbans were rapidly losing freight business to truckers and passenger business to automobiles.