The end of the streetcars: conversion, 1934–1940

1934–1940 · THE LAST FIVE LINES

The course of the conversion: Bus conversion began in 1934 — the year the interurban lines were abandoned, which is the Trains section's date of 1 June 1934 — and it proceeded line by line for six years. ChicagoRailFan's route record gives the succession as the company worked it: the North Michigan streetcars gave way to buses on 16 April 1936; Portage followed on 3 July 1937; Washington, Sample and Chapin were converted together on 21 August 1938; South Michigan on 22 July 1939; and the North Side line into Mishawaka on 20 August 1939. Five lines were left — Madison across the river, Lincolnway West, Notre Dame, Miami, and the South Side line into Mishawaka — and those five ended together. The CERA history's summary of the mechanics is plain: by 1938 the company planned to phase out the streetcars over a period of years, spreading the cost of purchasing new equipment; then the company was reorganized in 1940 to end its receivership — the receivership the CERA record dates from 1932 — and vocal civic groups and politicians put pressure on the reorganized company to change to buses immediately. The phased plan collapsed into a single date.

15 June 1940: On 15 June 1940 the Northern Indiana discontinued its last five streetcar operations and converted them to buses, ending fifty-five years of rail transit in South Bend that had begun with the horse car of 1885. The photographic record fixes the fortnight: cars at the corner of Washington and Michigan Streets on 12 June 1940, with the company office and the former interurban station in the background, and, shortly after abandonment, the sadder lineup of the retired cars formed at the shops. All rail and bus operations had by then been moved into the Notre Dame Avenue facility, the Columbia Street car house and the South Bend Motor Bus garage phased out. What became of the retired cars and the track in the streets is not documented in the record reached for this section beyond that lineup at the shops, and is recorded as a gap rather than dressed up. The conversion's timing entered the record with a regret attached, and the regret is documented too: the move would be regretted when the United States entered the Second World War at the end of 1941 and the greater capacity of the streetcars over buses would have been helpful in moving workers to and from plants like Studebaker that had converted to wartime production. The streetcars, in the company history's words, were hastily replaced by buses and were sorely missed during the subsequent war years.

Sources:

1. ChicagoRailFan, South Bend transit routes and facilities — the conversion dates by line, 1936–1939; the consolidation of all operations at Notre Dame Avenue and the phasing out of Columbia Street and the South Main garage.
2. Central Electric Railfans' Association, Electric Railways of Indiana (Bulletin 104, 1960) — bus conversion begun in 1934 and completed 15 June 1940; the Washington and Michigan photograph of 12 June 1940 and the lineup at the shops; the receivership of 1932 in the Michigan City record.
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 in the war years.
4. The Northern Indiana Railway record as compiled from Bradley (1998) and Jan Young, Studebaker and the Railroads, vol. 2 (2009) — the last five lines discontinued in June 1940 and the wartime capacity regret.