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1908 – November 2026 · THE STATION QUESTION CARRIED OPEN
The southern electric line outlived every other interurban in America, and it still runs past the town — it simply no longer stops. The Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend Railway — reorganized in 1904 from the Chicago & Indiana Air Line Railway of 1901 — began revenue service between Michigan City and South Bend on 1 July 1908, through New Carlisle, where the line kept a substation at Terre Coupee and, from about 1908, a flag stop at Arch and Zigler Streets; the station building at New Carlisle was built by the interurban company, whose line lay immediately north of the South Shore's, and the two electrics shared the town's station ground at the bottom of the hill. The road reached Chicago over the Kensington & Eastern in 1909. Samuel Insull bought the bankrupt line in 1925 for his Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad and remade it: the power system changed from 6,600 volts AC to 1,500 volts DC in July 1926, with a new substation at New Carlisle among the eight built for the conversion. The Chesapeake & Ohio took the road on 3 January 1967 and kept its passenger trains running when Amtrak left it out of the 1971 system; when the C&O's successor asked to abandon the service in 1976, the state answered with the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District — NICTD, formed 1977 — which subsidized the trains, assumed passenger operation on 29 December 1989, and bought the track in December 1990, the freight passing to a new Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad. The district has since rebuilt the line entire: the Double Track Northwest Indiana project, $649 million, added a second track over some 26 miles from Gary to Michigan City and was completed in May 2024, ending street running in Michigan City; and on 31 March 2026 the system's second line, the Monon Corridor — the West Lake Corridor of its building years — opened from Hammond Gateway to the Munster/Dyer border. The main line past New Carlisle is the Lakeshore Corridor; the system's 2025 ridership was 2,029,900. For this town the modern course is written in its stops. The New Carlisle flag stop at Arch and Zigler, open since about 1908, closed on 5 July 1994 in NICTD's service revision, with Ambridge, Kemil Road, Willard Avenue, LaLumiere and Rolling Prairie. The nearest live stop is Hudson Lake, in La Porte County — a flag stop, and by the county study's account the line's lowest-ridership station. And the station question stands open, printed as open: a 2018 county study examined a new New Carlisle station on the line; a March 2025 feasibility study favored a site near the American Legion Post, about a ten-minute walk from downtown; in September 2025 the county Redevelopment Commission backed that "Site B" and approved site-readiness work — the meeting summaries date the action 6 September in one account and 16 September in another, and both print; on 12 November 2025 the Board of Commissioners transferred three parcels to the Redevelopment Commission for the New Carlisle Economic Development Area, including 494 and 496 East Michigan Street, the old trailer park the county bought in 2020 as a potential station site, with the express statement that there is no final decision on a train station. A station, if built, would replace the Hudson Lake stop; a possible opening in 2027 or 2028 has been stated; the town's current comprehensive plan lists a New Carlisle station as a major priority. As of November 2026, no station is built, none is finally decided, and the trains pass the bottom of the hill as they have since 1994 — close enough to hear, too far to board.
Principal sources: the South Shore corporate and NICTD record (the 1908 opening; the Insull conversion of July 1926; the C&O purchase of 3 January 1967; NICTD 1977/1989/1990; Double Track completion, May 2024; Monon Corridor opening, 31 March 2026); the South Bend Tribune, 17 June 1994 (the flag-stop closures) and the 2018–2025 station record, as carried in this build's spine.