The Other Steam Roads, Tested

this section's negative roll

Exactly one steam railroad ever entered Clay Township — the Michigan Central. The New York Central proper was in the township only through that subsidiary: its own Lake Shore & Michigan Southern main line runs through South Bend south of the township, and the Niles Branch was Michigan Central property, passing to the New York Central system, Penn Central, Conrail and Norfolk Southern in turn. The Grand Trunk Western does not touch the township: its South Bend line is the east–west main through the south side of the city, its former depot standing near Division Street and its 1932 derailment report placing the line between High and Marietta Streets, some three miles south of the town; the interurban crossed the Grand Trunk only inside South Bend. The Big Four — the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis — is the road the ground east of the town requires naming: its line ran Niles to Granger to Elkhart across the county's northern tier east of Roseland, built in 1882 as the Elkhart, Niles and Lake Michigan, bought by the Big Four in 1890, merged into the New York Central in 1930, its last part between Niles and South Bend closing in 1993; no part of it is shown entering Roseland. The Wabash never entered the county's north tier at all. The Pere Marquette touched this railroad only at La Porte and Michigan City, where the 1933 timetable lists its crossings; its Indiana ground was La Porte County and Benton Harbor, and no Pere Marquette trackage in St. Joseph County was reached.

Sources: the Michigan Central station list of 1920; ICC Bureau of Safety report of June 7, 1932 (the Grand Trunk derailment); City of Niles history marker text (the Big Four course); Northern Indiana Railway Time Table No. 70 crossing lists for all three divisions (CLS&SB, Michigan Central, Grand Trunk, New York Central, Lake Erie & Western and Pere Marquette named — never Wabash).