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1894–1976 and after · the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa's South Bend extension
For most of a century Walkerton was a three-railroad town: the Indiana, Illinois & Iowa Railroad, which had built from Streator to North Judson in 1881, completed its extension to South Bend in 1894, crossing both of Walkerton's railroads at the diamonds KN Tower would govern. Howard's county history misprints the successor's name as the "Chicago, Illinois & Southern"; the company was the Chicago, Indiana & Southern, and under the New York Central the line became the Illinois Division's Kankakee Belt — the belt line that let Central freight swing around Chicago. The succession ran Penn Central in 1968 and Conrail in 1976, and Conrail is where Walkerton's third road ends: the line was lifted on both sides of town, its diamonds pulled, its grade left to the fields. The town that the railroads made keeps two of its three roads; the third is a line on the old maps and a straight seam in the aerial photographs.
Sources:
- The Story of Walkerton section leg of this build (the Streator–North Judson build of 1881; the South Bend extension completed 1894; the 1964 New York Central Illinois Division interchange list; Howard's "Illinois" misprint, corrected).
- American Rails, the Kankakee Belt Route (the Chicago, Indiana & Southern succession; the belt's function).