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1973–1989 · the dockets
One of this town's two abandonments carries a docket; the other carries a date and a silence, and both print as they stand. G-SP-4 — SETTLED at INDOT-list strength. The Indiana Department of Transportation's Indiana Railroad Abandonments list, read first-hand, carries the row: NS, Gary East Line, Pine (186.64) to Wakarusa (170.24), Docket AB-290(34), 16.4 miles, 1989. Lakeville lies between Pine and Wakarusa on the line — Pine at Chicago-distance 84.8, Lakeville 87.3, Wakarusa 100.9 on the station list, the list's mileposts running from Detroit — so the Lakeville portion of the Wabash line was abandoned in 1989 under Docket AB-290(34), the same row that settled the sister town's segment in North Liberty's build: one docket covers both towns' ground. Two cautions ride with the settlement, as they did there. The list gives the abandonment year only — no removal (track-lifting) date for the Lakeville portion (gap G-TR-1); a photograph of "the removal of the Wabash between Benton and Pine in '85" in the line historian's correspondence sits against the eastern segment's own 1985 row (Gary-East Line, Ashley-Hudson to Wakarusa, AB-10(21F)) — Benton is east of Wakarusa, and the two records are printed together, not harmonised. And the line historian's standing caution — that he has found the state abandonment summaries and dates "very unreliable" (his edition dated 1995) — attaches to this settler as it does in the sister build (carried there as its C103; cited here as a pointer, not renumbered). The abandonment sequence around Lakeville on the same list: Gary to Dillon in 1983 (AB-10(24), 42.89 miles), the eastern segment in 1985 (AB-10(21F), as printed), a small Gary piece in 1988 (AB-290(47X)), and Wolcottville to South Milford in 1991 (AB-353X). One anomaly in the list as printed is flagged exactly as the sister build flagged it from the other end: the AB-10(21F) row pairs "Ashley-Hudson (170.24)" with "Wakarusa (122.53)" — but 170.24 is Wakarusa's milepost in the AB-290(34) row, and 170.24 minus 122.53 is that row's stated 47.71 miles; the row's names and numbers appear transposed as printed (the sister build's C101; pointer only here).
The Vandalia's end prints differently, because the list does not carry it. In-document searches of the same INDOT list for "Lakeville" and "Walkerton" returned zero matches, and no row names a Nutwood-to-Culver segment or any 1973 South Bend Branch abandonment. The banked dates therefore stand at the strength they were banked: the Nutwood–Culver segment — Lakeville's — "was abandoned in 1973 and removed in 1974," and the Culver–Logansport remainder abandoned in 1974 and removed in 1976 (the line history, compilation strength), with no ICC/STB docket found in the settler named for it. The list flanks the segment instead: USRA Penn Central, South Bend (179) to Nutwood (176), 3 miles, 1976; and Logansport to Culver, Docket AB-5(107), 32.7 miles, 1974. A southern-segment tension prints at pointer size because a careless reader could import it: a Marshall County compilation dates the Logansport–Culver abandonment to 29 July 1976 and quotes the Culver Citizen of 17 December 1975 announcing Penn Central's termination of service on that segment effective 27 February 1976, the tracks "not been used for several years" — against the list's 1974 for the same segment. It does not touch Lakeville's dates; it is printed so it is never mistaken for them. Conflict C113 — the mileage bases: the USRA row measures South Bend (179) to Nutwood (176), three miles; the station list measures South Bend (PRR) 182.2 and Nutwood 176.7, five and a half. Different mileage bases in different records; printed unmerged (gap G-TR-12: the ICC valuation maps are the settler class).
Principal sources: INDOT, Indiana Railroad Abandonments list (read first-hand, in-document searches run); the South Bend Branch line history (compilation); Baird, Trainorders, 21 January 2005 (the caution, author strength).