An overnight train from Chicago?

Just ran across an old 1971 schedule, and it shows a train #3 leaving eastbound from Randolph St. at 2:30am Tue-Sat. mornings with a 5:35am local arrival in SB. Anyone know how long this train existed, or rather, why it even existed in the first place? Thanks...

doepack wrote:Just ran across an old 1971 schedule, and it shows a train #3 leaving eastbound from Randolph St. at 2:30am Tue-Sat. mornings with a 5:35am local arrival in SB. Anyone know how long this train existed, or rather, why it even existed in the first place? Thanks...

The latest train I see in the 1985 schedule is 12:45a arriving 2:35am Tuesday-Saturday at Shops. That train still exists although it runs every day (nine minutes quicker). The new November 2009 schedule added a South Bend Sat-Sun nightowl leaving Chicago at 11:15pm and arriving in South Bend at 2:46am (1:46am central). With the time it takes to change ends and deadhead back to Shops this is now the last train on the line each weekend (unless 601 is late).

With that early of an arrival in SB they were probably just using it to position equipment for the next South Bend run.
Was this a Bendix end of the line train or was this right before truncation?

justalurker66 wrote:With that early of an arrival in SB they were probably just using it to position equipment for the next South Bend run.
Was this a Bendix end of the line train or was this right before truncation?

No Bendix station is listed, and it had to have been well before the South Bend terminal was relocated to the airport (that happened about 15-20 years ago, correct?) And apparently, this was a scheduled revenue run, since it appeared on a public schedule. Just seems odd to me that a train would operate at that hour...

doepack wrote: Anyone know how long this train existed, or rather, why it even existed in the first place? Thanks...

Hello, Doepack. I see that Train 3 existed as far back as my April 26, 1953 public timetable. I have older PTTs but they're not accessible right now. Anyhow, in 1953 it ran daily and was officially a "South Bend Limited".

Interestingly, it carried a baggage car. Perhaps in addition to being a "clean-up" run for night-owl psgrs., plus car-positioning move for the morning rush, it was seen as a useful means of hauling whatever express baggage was left over from late-evening deliveries to the various stations. The next earlier baggage car-equipped run was Train 37, the "South Bend Limited" leaving Chicago at 9pm daily.

Even more interestingly, as seen across the years Train 3's baggage car came off and on repeatedly:
April 29, 1956: baggage car absent; moved to Train 7 at 5:55am
March 15, 1963: present; Train 7 also has one!
March 15, 1966: present; Train 7 discontinued, but Train 1 at 12:45am also has one...
July 1, 1971: absent.

Indeed, in the 7/1/1971 PTT, "Emergency Package Service" is advertised big and bold, but listings are now no longer publicly shown of exactly which scheduled trains have a baggage car in their consist. Aside from sales-speak, the only logistical details in the ad are as follows, and I quote:

"Just take your parcel to the baggage room...Randolph St. and Michigan Ave. or to ticket agent in other cities. It will be forwarded to destination on the first passenger train carrying baggage car."

I imagine that a baggage car was now added "ad hoc" to any given consist only if enough packages arrived that day to warrant the extra expense to the railroad.

BTW, William Middleton's book on the railroad states that the eastern terminus was cut back two miles from downtown South Bend to Bendix in 1970, so Doepack's Train 3 is definitely "post-truncation". The second move, this time to the airport, was circa 1992-93.

As serious fans of the South Shore know, 1971 was the last year before the axe fell. The Middleton book grimly notes that the ICC approved "a major reduction in service" effective May 1972. Subsequent timetables undoubtedly showed what one could describe as a skeletal remnant of once-frequent service. I'll wager that the last remains of the baggage service were swept away in that flood of discontinuances. I wonder if Train 3 was cut ten months later once the ICC gave their blessing for the South Shore to come to grips with their mounting passenger losses. I don't have later PTTs handy right now, so I can't comment further.

Let me stress that I'm dealing with guesswork and hypothesis here. The more I dig for answers, the more questions I find. Rail history is like that. If we were blessed with a visit to this forum by Mitch, perhaps he could shed some light on the intriguing mystery of Train 3's role on the railroad.

Damn it, I hate mysteries.

They sometimes make me stay up late and become a driven madman until I find more clues...

I finally located my copy of CSS&SB RR employee timetable No. 128, dated 10/27/1957. With impatient fingers I eased the cardstock cover open and my eye fell upon the employee schedule info for Train 3. And there it was, plain as day, right at the top of that train's column of data:

Train 3 was internally designated by the railroad as the "South Bend Mail".

That seems to explain its weird insomniac operating hours, as well as the presence of the baggage car. As other late-night trains came and went with baggage cars in this night-owl period over the years, perhaps others temporarily held the official designation as the eastward overnight mail train.

No other trains in that employee timetable are listed as mail trains. None. Interestingly, there was no indicated westward overnight mail run. We seem to have stumbled across something unique.

I am amused to think that, even as I finish typing this post, 53 years ago Train 3 would right now be rolling like a flange-wheeled rocket and is...well, was...passing Andry siding at milepost 63.3 riiiiiiiight about...now.

Damn it, I love mysteries.

A fascinating, and most insightful explanation, Franklin. Thanks, and hope I didn't keep you up TOO late last night...

I would guess this train was also a newspaper train, receiving Chicago papers hot off the presses and delivering them to stops along the line in time to be sold to morning commuters.

MikeF wrote:I would guess this train was also a newspaper train, receiving Chicago papers hot off the presses and delivering them to stops along the line in time to be sold to morning commuters.

That's a darn good point, Mike. Noted, with thanks!

note.. the C&O was literally trying to squeeze off the South Shore passenger service, purposely NOT restoring the cars in the shops in light of possibly abandoning the passenger service. Doesnt surprise me now to hear the "reduction of service".

Economy may be downish now, but with the call of going green and lines like BNSF electrifying, I think the South Shore is a bit more secure.

If I remember right train 3's cars went back West as train 12