The interurban: proposed toward Plymouth, never built to Lakeville

Tested · the electric lines ran west, east and north

No built interurban ever reached Lakeville, and the systems' own records say why: from South Bend, the electric lines radiated the other three ways. The Northern Indiana Railway's documented communities were South Bend and Mishawaka, Michigan City, La Porte, Notre Dame, Elkhart, Goshen and Bristol in Indiana, and Benton Harbor, St. Joseph and Niles in Michigan — every line west, east or north; its standard history's contents (CERA Bulletin 132) cover the South Bend/Mishawaka lines, Elkhart County and La Porte/Michigan City, and contain no South Bend–Plymouth or Lakeville section. Its one Vandalia touch is instructive: the railway's main carload freight customer was reached via "a connection with the Pennsylvania Railroad Vandalia Line on the south side of South Bend" — the electric road met Lakeville's railroad in South Bend, not in Lakeville. The Chicago South Shore & South Bend approached from the west and terminated at South Bend (its line to Michigan City completed 1 July 1908; eastern terminus South Bend ever since) — it never came south of the city. The Northern Indiana's interurban lines were abandoned in 1934, the entire railway in 1940. The verdict therefore stands at compilation and system-record strength: no interurban was built to Lakeville.Plymouth Tribune of 7 July 1904 quoting the Walkerton Independent). This pass tested expressly whether any carrier routes a South Bend–Plymouth proposal via Lakeville, on the direct Michigan Road axis: none was found — but the test is printed with its limit honestly: the targeted searches for the syndicate failed (returning motor-car and engine material of other names), and Marlette's Electric Railroads of Indiana (1959) "Proposed Lines" chapter, located in the book's contents at the banked pass, has since been read whole in this build's trains record (lk-digc-l30-marlette-read), which discharges gap G-TR-7. The banked routing stands uncontradicted; the Lakeville routing stands unproven, which is a different thing from disproven, and the file prints both. Horse cars need one sentence: no street railway of any kind is listed for Lakeville in any system record searched — in a town whose first railroad arrived in 1884, there was never a horse-car era to convert.

Principal sources: Monon.org, "Northern Indiana Railroad" (compilation); the Northern Indiana Railway reference article and CERA Bulletin 132 contents (directory); the Chicago South Shore & South Bend line histories (compilations); the sister build's banked 1904 item (pointer).