$75.00 CAD
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Nice moody RPPC photo postcard of the new Lake Shore and Southern Michigan Rail Road shop site in Elkhart Indiana.
Written on negative THE NEW L.S. & M.S.R.R. SHOP SITE, ELKHART , IND. INBODY , PHOTO
On back ‘Made by J. Inbody, Elkhart, Ind, Home Phone 500’
Postmarked ELKHART IND SEP 3 1912 mailed to Grand Rapids MI
The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833, and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the south shore of Lake Erie (in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio) and across northern Indiana.
Around 1877, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and his New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, gained a majority of stock of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. The line provided an ideal extension of the New York Central main line from Buffalo, west to Chicago, along with the route across southern Ontario, the Canada Southern Railway and the Michigan Central Railroad.
Located at the junction point of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern main line and Air Line, Elkhart was a natural location for a rail maintenance complex that included locomotive works, repair shops, a carpenter shop, boiler shop, and two round-houses with 49 stalls, freight houses, and offices. Begun in 1870 one mile west of the downtown depot, in just 20 years the collection of shops would employ more than 1,200 people, and an observer noted “when to these shops are added the large force continually employed in and about the Station and Freight Office a pretty clear idea will be had of the Lake Shore’s importance to our city…” In time the Lake Shore freight yards also developed into a classification area where the railroad could assemble freight trains. Only 100 miles from Chicago, a major Midwestern and continental rail center, sorting the cars at Elkhart made sense as it avoided potential delays and confusion that might have resulted from locating the yard in the metropolis. Trains made up in Elkhart could simply cruise on through the busy Chicago rail yards and crossings on their way west.
