RAILROADS: Second Childhood

Generations of Hoosiers knew the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway Co. (the Monon*) as a rickety single-track line that was chiefly notable for carrying Lincoln's funeral train in 1865. For years it carried little other traffic. Although the Monon's 541 miles of track tapped the rich Chicago and Ohio Valley areas, the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads carried the region's freight and passengers. In 1933 the Monon went into receivership. It all but stopped carrying passengers; they were a nuisance. It ran freight trains only when there was enough freight to...

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