The Logansport and Indiana Northern
Hello.
I'm modeling a proto freelanced short line based off of an old PRR/PC/Conrail branch that used to run from Logansport to South Bend, Indiana up to the late 70's. Some remember this branch as the Vandalia Branch. I model the southern end where all of the elevators pretty much existed. It's called the Logansport and Indiana Northern. It's a part of the INRAIL system (Indiana Northern Rail Corporation) that united the L&IN, my friends M&IN, and the Fulton County Railroad.
I pretty much copied and pasted the following from an email I sent to Mike Confalone. So, here is that part of my answer.
The L&IN began soon after the Conrail abandonment of the South Bend Branch in 1979. In the early 80's, operation was limited to the southern end from Logansport to Culver but mostly stopping at Delong just south of Culver where we interchange with another INRAIL partner in the Fulton County Railroad. The southern end has all the grain elevators. The northern end was mostly industrial and didn't generate a lot of business with many plants closing. My friend Quintin Schini's M&IN pretty much handles the north end and sometimes ventures down to the L&IN southern end to deliver and pick up covered hoppers (this part of the operation is not modeled).
Just about 100% of the traffic on the L&IN are covered hoppers for corn and bean loading with some covered hopper loads delivering feed at Delong Elevator. We do deliver an occasional tank car for anhydrous. Covered hoppers also deliver fertilizer, phosphate, and lime to the Farm Bureau Coop Elevator, also in Delong. There are two elevators in Delong. As of now, no boxcars are seen on my end of the L&IN. That may change in the future. The towns on my railroad are Logansport (the yard and interchange with the N&W, TP&W, and Conrail), Lucerne, Grass Creek, Kewanna, and Delong (interchange with Fulton County former EL main) with Culver beyond the basement so to speak. :O)
So, there you have it. Very basic and straight forward. One train a day operation delivering empty covered hoppers or picking up loaded covered hopper to/from any of the 4 elevators on my layout. Train length averages about 5 or 6 covered hoppers and not all elevators get hoppers in a single operating session. One elevator may get hoppers in an operating session and that's it. The pick ups might come from another elevator. Some days, all 4 elevators will get covered hoppers. It varies. Track speed averages about 15 mph.
My layout is very narrow. I'm a strong advocate of narrow shelf model railroading. Less is more. Less scenery needs to be modeled this way. Most of the shelves are only 12 inches deep with some down to about 8 inches. The widest place on my layout is the very end of Delong where Jones' Country Store is. That part is close to 20 inches deep. The layout is nearly 100 feet in length. When I've had visitors over, they are amazed at what I've done on narrow shelves. They leave wanting to do something similar. :O) The narrow shelves make operation easier (reaching in the throw switches and uncoupling cars), cleaning track, and vacuuming dust off of scenery and structures and so on. I'm sort of a "clean" freak. Forgot to add, the layout is 60 inches off of the floor. It is mounted on metal shelf brackets. I've had it up now for well over 10 years with no issues with expansion and contraction. I have my metal brackets on 12 inch centers and not 16.
So, there you have it. Thanks for asking.
Tom Johnson
