The Pumpkin Vine: the St. Joseph, South Bend & Southern

1890–1950s · THE LAKE LINE

South Bend's fourth road ran northwest to the Lake Michigan shore, and the countryside named it: The Indiana & Lake Michigan Railway built the 36.9-mile line from South Bend to St. Joseph, Michigan, opening it on 4 August 1890; operation had been arranged in advance to the Terre Haute & Indianapolis under a lease dated 4 June 1889 — the Berrien County history of 1906 garbles the succession as "first called the Vandalia road and afterwards the Three I road," and the garble is printed here because it shows how the line was known on the ground: as a Pennsylvania-system tenant. Receivership came in 1896 and a foreclosure sale in 1898, out of which the St. Joseph, South Bend & Southern Railroad was organized. In February 1900 the road was leased to the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa for fifty years from 1 March 1900, and the line was extended some two miles from St. Joseph to Benton Harbor.

In 1905 the Michigan Central took control by transfer of that lease, and in February 1930 the Central itself passed under New York Central lease — leaving the New York Central with two South Bend–Benton Harbor routes, of which, as the railroad record puts it, "the Niles Branch proved the more valuable." The heyday service was three passenger trains each way daily between South Bend and St. Joseph, most of them connecting at Galien with Michigan Central Chicago–Detroit main-line trains; the country stations and the summer lake traffic gave the line its nickname, the Pumpkin Vine. By 1919 service was down to one round trip. In 1924 all operations were suspended between SSS Junction, west of South Bend, and Galien. In November 1942 the Central and the St. Joseph, South Bend & Southern applied to abandon the twenty-six miles from SSS Junction to Baroda; permission came in December, the War Production Board requisitioned the rails from SSS Junction to Glendora for the war effort, and removal was completed early in 1943 — the Pumpkin Vine bridge west of Lydick among the trackage lifted. The line south of Baroda was abandoned in the early 1940s, and the St. Joseph end closed in the mid-1950s. Its South Bend trains had used Union Station; the station's record of former services still lists the St. Joseph–South Bend run.

Sources:

1. Sulzer, Ghost Railroads of Indiana, as carried at monon.org — the Indiana & Lake Michigan's 36.9 miles, the 4 August 1890 opening, the 1889 Terre Haute & Indianapolis lease, the 1896 receivership, the 1898 foreclosure, and the St. Joseph, South Bend & Southern's organization.
2. Coolidge, A Twentieth Century History of Berrien County, Michigan (1906) — the line "built from South Bend through Galien, Glendora and Baroda to St. Joseph" in 1889–90, and its period garbling of the road's succession, printed as found.
3. The New York Central Historical Society's depot survey and the line's compiled record — the February 1900 lease to the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa, the Benton Harbor extension, the Michigan Central's 1905 control, the three daily round trips and Galien connections, the 1924 suspension, the 1942 abandonment application and War Production Board requisition, removal early in 1943, and the mid-1950s closing of the St. Joseph end.
4. Union Station's record of former services — the St. Joseph–South Bend trains among the station's departed runs.