The South Shore built: the Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend

1901–1916 · THE ELECTRIC ROAD

The last and longest-lived of South Bend's railroads was built like a steam road and run like a streetcar: The company was incorporated at the end of 1901 as the Chicago & Indiana Air Line Railway, and renamed the Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend Railway on 30 July 1904. Its builders refused the usual interurban shortcuts: a sixty-six-foot right-of-way, grading and structures to steam-railroad standard, a line designed for seventy-five miles an hour. Construction began in 1906. On 8 June 1907 a special train carried South Bend officials from South Bend to Hudson Lake over the finished eastern end. The first train ran from Michigan City to South Bend on 30 June 1908, and revenue service began on 1 July 1908 — the date this build's Spine settles, against the telling that dates the line from Insull's 1925 purchase — with trains every two hours at sixty-five cents one way and a dollar the round trip. Regular South Bend–Hammond service, ten trains each way daily, followed on 8 September 1908. The first South Bend terminal stood at Main Street, with a wye at Colfax Avenue and the coach yard on LaSalle Avenue on the east bank of the St. Joseph. The line reached Chicago in stages that mark its ambition: through trains to Pullman and Kensington over the leased Kensington & Eastern from 4 April 1909, and through coaches behind Illinois Central steam into Randolph Street from 2 June 1912. Carload freight service — the sideline that would keep the property valuable long after the passengers thinned — began on 1 August 1916.

Sources:

1. Middleton, South Shore: The Last Interurban, and the Middleton chronology carried by the Central Electric Railfans' Association — the incorporation of 1901, the renaming of 30 July 1904, the sixty-six-foot right-of-way and seventy-five-mile-an-hour design, the construction start of 1906, the officials' special of 8 June 1907, the first train of 30 June 1908, revenue service of 1 July 1908 at sixty-five cents and a dollar, regular Hammond service of 8 September 1908, the Main Street terminal and LaSalle Avenue coach yard, the Kensington through trains of 4 April 1909, the Randolph Street through coaches of 2 June 1912, and carload freight from 1 August 1916.
2. This build's Spine section — the 1 July 1908 revenue opening and Insull's 1925 purchase as separate events, settled there; the "began running in 1925" telling is an error the Story of South Bend section already dispels.