The Bethlehem-Ares Railroad
(An Alternate History)
The present day BARR traces its roots back to 1822, when the state of Illinois granted a charter to a group of farmers and businessmen headed by Enoch Wilhelm to “...build a Rail Road to be called the Mattoon and Richmond System...” between the central Illinois town of Mattoon and the city of Richmond, Indiana. This ambitious, far-sighted (and ultimately futile...) effort was foiled by a lack of both funds and cooperation of the Indiana state government. Never one to let a small matter like a state government stand in his way, Mr. Wilhelm convinced the state of Illinois and the other members of his group to build a link north to the town of Champaign “... for the practise (sic) of construction and operations until such time as our good neighbors to the east shall see their way clear to cooperation rather than obstructification!” This section of the line eventually turned into a fairly profitable endeavor for those involved.
In 1865 the Mattoon and Richmond System (MaRS) found itself in a dominant regional position due to the expansion it had conducted for the transportation of troops and supplies for the Union war effort. It had escaped the war relatively unscathed, outside of a few incidents of minor vandalism and the odd Confederate raid or two. However, like the other railroads across the nation, both in the north and in the south, it soon felt the effects of the loss of government contracts after the war.
By 1903 the MaRS line had completed a rail link from Chicago through central Illinois to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at Cairo, with an extension under construction to St. Louis, including a number of car floats for access across the Mississippi River. Planning and construction were also underway for lines to Indianapolis, Gary, and Louisville, with eyes on the western Ohio city of Losantiville as a goal.
After the severe flooding of the Miyamee River basin in Ohio in 1913, several small cities and towns relocated their major population and business centers out of the threatened floodplains and allowed the land to revert to farms and greenspace. The MaRS line finally reached Richmond (one hundred years after it came into existence) and pushed on towards Dayton, Osborn, Springfield, and the Ohio state capitol at Grove City. It split off a branch toward the south, reaching Dayton, Hamilton, and Losantiville. They now had a connection to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and with that connections to the Pennsylvania coal fields and the East Coast seaports, as well as the upstream access to the Ohio river through Louisville, Losantiville, and Fort Pitt.
In 1929, the Great Depression hit, and the MaRS lines felt the pressure as much as any railroad. However, they managed to remain barely profitable by postponing or cancelling all expansion plans, freezing (sometimes even dropping) freight rates, and concentrating their efforts on the transportation of staples such as coal, iron ore, coke, steel, produce, and livestock. Passenger traffic dropped to almost nothing, and the MaRS, in direct defiance of the Federal government, sharply curtailed service on many routes. They ended up in a long court battle with the government, but the total of the legal costs and the settlement (agreed to after several unproductive years in court) cost them much less that the unused service and resulting maintenance would have, and their lines and passenger equipment were in better shape as a result when full passenger service was finally restored in early 1934 at a ceremony marking the opening of the Losantiville Union Terminal.
After the Depression, and with long-delayed expansion plans back in development, the MaRS lines finally connected to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and officially changed its name to the “Bethlehem-Ares Rail Road” (which makes a far better acronym than the BMRR would be...). BARR President and CEO George Washington Ellis attended the Berlin Olympics in 1936, and was invited to tour the railroads of Germany while he was there. He saw perhaps more than the German National-Socialists might have wished.
On returning to the United States via the new and novel airship “Hindenberg”, he wired ahead from Lakehurst and had the entire Board of Directors of the railroad waiting for him at the station when he arrived back at the Losantille headquarters. In a marathon meeting helad over two and a half days in his private car “Mae Daisie” (named for his wife), G. W. rammed through an unprecedented development, repair, and right-of-way improvements program aimed at putting the entire railroad on a war footing. When the United States entered World War II on December 6th, 1941 with the Battle of Hawaii between the Japanese fleet sailing to attack the base at Pearl harbor, and the US fleet that sortied out to meet them, (supported by land-based B-17s lead by Col. Billy Mitchell out of Hickam Field) the BARR was in perhaps the best position of any railroad in the nation. With a fleet of new, more efficient steam engines, and plans on the drawing board for a new steam turbine-electric locomotive, the BARR was ready for the long haul. Even with the “deferred maintenance”, rationing, and shortages, the BARR came through the war years in good condition.
With the end of the war in June of 1945 (brought about by the “demonstrations” off the coast of Japan and in the North Sea which resulted in the outright surrender of Japan and the assassination of Hitler and the treaty of Dunkirk) the BARR was poised to take full advantage of its pre-war efforts. While many other railroads were suffereing the combined effects of years of heavy loads, frozen rates, and deferred maintenance, the BARR rapidly moved to do what repairs were necessary and consolidate their domination of their market. Dropping plans for their steam turbine-electric locomotive, they moved quickly to buy diesels for passenger service and all non-streamlined steam locomotives were gradually relegated to freight service. Steam was still commonly seen on the main lines through the 1970's though, and streamlined steam engines were still seen in scheduled passenger service into the 1990's, and on special excursion trains even today.
By 1957, diesel-electric locomotives were in general service on the BARR, but the president of the road Joseph Ellis, son of G. W. Ellis, declared that “... no steam engine shall be scrapped unless it is wrecked or otherwise beyond repair.” As a result, the BARR has the largest roster of steam power left in the United States, and keeps it in good running order.
The BARR also took the unprecedented step of building a large motor freight and transfer facility to complement the Losantiville Union Terminal, and began forging a strong relationship with several small trucking companies.
In 1959, the Federal Transportation Authority, created to manage the coordinated postwar growth of the road, rail, and air transportation systems, decided that a nationwide network of limited-access “super-throughways” was “... an unnecessary and outrageously expensive and redundant objective...” and severly curtailed the proposed building program. The FTA mandated a system of local road net development, local and long distance passenger rail servie, and a network of regional air terminals for the national transportation net. Train terminals at airfields became common, with the trains running passengers and light freight to and from the hub airfields. High-speed passenger rail service on dedicated, elevated lines without road crossings, combined with long distance centralized air passenger service, made it possible to get to almost anywhere from almost anywhere in the 49 contiguous states in six to ten hours by the mid-1970's.
With the merger of the Baltimore and Ohio with the Chesapeake and Ohio in 1962 the resulting C&O was a strong competitor in the BARR's market, but the Losantiville transfer facility and others like it gave the BARR a leg up on the competition. With the PRR/NYC merger in 1969, and their eventual restructuring in to ConRail, the BARR and Norfolk Western became the major players in the Ohio valley. While the BARR didn't have direct access to the east coast ports that the NW had, it did have access to the extensive port facilities along both the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. In the face of long-established competition from both of these roads, ConRail withdrew from the market in favor of consolidation its position in the northeast.
As TOFC truck traffic evolved into containers and intermodal service, the BARR's Mill Valley freight yard and terminal complex in Losantiville continued to expand, adding the Losantiville Intermodal Facility in 1978. This continues to be a state of the art facility and has become a major shipping nexus for the entire eastern US. With access to the Great Lakes and Ohio River container ports and the ongoing development of specialized high speed passenger and priority freight equipment, the Bethlehem -Ares Railroad is poised to continue to be a dominant force in transportation and shipping through the Midwest.
