The motor bus appears: 1923–1934

1923–1934 · RUBBER ALONGSIDE RAIL

The company's own buses: The motor bus came to South Bend's transit record in 1923, and it came from inside the railway company. In that year the Northern Indiana's subsidiary Railway Transit Line began operating buses out of a garage at Riverside and Francis Street, south of the Notre Dame Avenue facility, and the first local bus route in South Bend ran on Fellows Street — a route later combined with the bus route that replaced the Miami streetcar line. The bus was at first a feeder and a frontier tool: the Rum Village bus route of 1926 began as an extension of the Chapin streetcar route, the Calvert route followed the same year, and the Western Avenue bus route opened in 1928. The company, in its history's summary, bought up most of the competing motor bus operations of the jitney years, and after that its buses ran on schedules which complemented the electric cars and gave, by its own account, even better service.

The competitor absorbed: One competing operation has its own facility record. In 1928 the South Bend Motor Bus Company began operating out of a garage at South Main Street and Western Avenue; that company soon fell under the control of the Northern Indiana, and in 1933 all bus operations were moved into the South Bend Motor Bus Company's facility. South Bend's distinction in the system's history belongs in this entry, because it was earned here: of all the Northern Indiana's cities, South Bend is the only one where the same company also operated the replacement bus service — in Elkhart, Goshen, Michigan City and La Porte, different companies ran the buses that followed the cars. The South Bend succession, from the horse car of 1885 through the bus garage of 1933 to the public corporation of 1968, has no break in it.

Sources:

1. ChicagoRailFan, South Bend transit facilities and routes — the Railway Transit Line's buses of 1923 and the Riverside and Francis garage; the Fellows Street route as the first local bus route; the South Bend Motor Bus Company of 1928, its South Main and Western garage, its passage under Northern Indiana control, and the 1933 consolidation of bus operations; the Rum Village (1926), Calvert (1926) and Western (1928) bus routes; South Bend as the only Northern Indiana city where the same company ran the replacement buses.
2. George K. Bradley, Northern Indiana Railway Inc., CERA Bulletin 132 (1998), published summary — the purchased competitors and the complementary bus schedules.