The last streetcars: Mishawaka's cars ran to the system's last day, 15 June 1940

1934-1940 · CONVERSION, LINE BY LINE, THEN ALL AT ONCE

The settlement, stated plainly: Mishawaka's last streetcars ran on 15 June 1940. The North Side line had gone to buses the summer before, on 20 August 1939; the South Side line and the McKinley line ran until the system's final day, when the Northern Indiana discontinued its last five streetcar operations — the two Mishawaka lines among them — and converted them to buses. The CERA history's summary of the whole property is one line: bus conversion, begun in 1934, was completed 15 June 1940. A photograph caption in the Northern Indiana record fixes the day on Mishawaka's own river: a car crossing the St. Joseph River westbound on the old Grand Trunk bridge on 15 June 1940, the caption calling it the last run of this line and noting that the next day bus service was initiated.

How the conversion came: The conversion was worked line by line for six years across the two cities — the Mishawaka steps in the route record are the North Side's buses of 20 August 1939 and the joint ending of 15 June 1940 — and it was not supposed to end all at once. The CERA's history of the company records that by 1938 the company planned to phase out the streetcars over a period of years, spreading the equipment cost; then the company was reorganized in 1940 out of its receivership, and vocal civic groups and politicians pressed the reorganized company to change to buses immediately. The phased plan collapsed into the single date, and the regret was recorded at the time's near distance: the streetcars, in the company history's words, were sorely missed during the subsequent war years, when gasoline and rubber rationing filled every bus and the plants were running around the clock. Mishawaka's cars had run fifty-five years, from the horse cars of October 1885 to the last runs of June 1940; nothing on rails has carried the city's passengers since.

Sources:

1. ChicagoRailFan, South Bend transit route record — Route 9, North Side Mishawaka, buses introduced 20 August 1939; Routes 11 (South Side Mishawaka) and 1 (McKinley/Mishawaka), buses 15 June 1940.
2. Central Electric Railfans' Association, Electric Railways of Indiana (Bulletin 104, 1960) — bus conversion begun in 1934 and completed 15 June 1940.
3. George K. Bradley, Northern Indiana Railway Inc., CERA Bulletin 132 (1998), published summary — the phased conversion planned from 1938; the 1940 reorganization; the civic pressure for immediate conversion; the streetcars sorely missed during the war years.
4. Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society, Northern Indiana Railway photograph pages — the car crossing the St. Joseph River on 15 June 1940, captioned as the last run of its line, bus service beginning the next day.