New York Central/Big Four, Whitewater Division - Indiana & Ohio, Brookville Subdivision
Former New York Central, Whitewater Division to Hagerstown, IN
Standard gauge line opened in 1862
Downtown terminal: Central Union Depot (3rd Street & Central Avenue)
In limited local use
(Much of the history of the Whitewater and the Cincinnati &
Whitewater Canal comes from Donald R. Burden's 2006 thesis, "Whitewater
Canal Historical Corridor Guide")
The history of this railroad is as intertwined with the Whitewater Canal as with its parent, the Indianapolis & Cincinnati Railroad.
Ground was broken
for the Whitewater
Canal on September 13, 1836 between Lawrenceburg and
Hagerstown via Harrison, Brookville, Connersville, and Cambridge
City to connect the fertile farmland of southeast Indiana to
riverboats on the Ohio River. The canal would be 76 miles in
length and descended 491 feet from
beginning to end. It would require 55 or 56 locks, 12 aqueducts, and
seven
feeder dams. That was a discouragingly large amount of
infrastructure
for the length of the canal, but the Indiana Legislature decided to
proceed anyway since southeast Indiana was the most heavily settled and
agriculturally productive part of the state at the time.
Cincinnati businessmen wanted in on
this endeavor, proposing another canal along the north bank of the Ohio
River to connect with the Whitewater Canal at Harrison. A
groundbreaking ceremony was held on March 31, 1838 at the estate of
future President William Henry Harrison, a supporter of the canal to
Cincinnati.
The
Cincinnati & Whitewater Canal would divert some traffic away from
Lawrenceburg, but the Indiana promoters of the Whitewater Canal had no
choice but to allow it, since they needed permission to run some eight
miles through Ohio to avoid hilly terrain on the Indiana side of the
border. The two sections of canal would connect in a short slackwater segment in the Whitewater River south of Harrison
at the state border. Barges coming south would enter the
river
and go a few hundred feet to the inlet of the Cincinnati leg of the
canal on the north bank, or to the Lawrenceburg leg on the south
bank.
The
Cincinnati leg had a guard lock to manage inflow from the river, a
standard lock near Dry Fork Creek and later I-275, and a second standard
lock just east of the aqueduct over the Great Miami River at
Cleves. As
part of this project, the
first canal tunnel in Ohio was built between Cleves and North
Bend through a small ridge separating the two towns, with construction starting in 1839. It was arched with
brick, and the entrances were flanked with dressed Buena Vista Sandstone.
The tunnel was 1,780 feet long and 24 feet in diameter with a four foot
water depth. When exactly the tunnel was
completed is unknown, but the Cincinnati & Whitewater Canal opened
for business on November 28, 1843.
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A CL&A car sits on Campbell
Road south of Harrison, with the abandoned Cincinnati & Whitewater
Canal behind it and the railroad on the towpath beyond. Note the stone
remnants of a lock to the right of the car. This was a guard lock to
regulate water flow from the Whitewater River. |
The
first
section of the Whitewater Canal between Lawrenceburg and
Brookville had opened on June 8,
1839, but construction was suspended shortly thereafter since the
State of Indiana had overextended its financial resources. In 1842, Cincinnati businessman Henry S.
Valette purchased the incomplete Whitewater Canal, and construction
resumed in the late summer or early fall of that year. It was
opened to
the Laurel Feeder Dam in 1843, roughly halfway between Brookville and
Connersville. It reached Connersville in 1845 and Cambridge
City in 1846. Although Hagerstown was the intended terminus of
the Whitewater Canal during the period of State sponsored construction,
the new White Water Valley Canal Company could not afford to build north
of Cambridge City. The citizens of Hagerstown were forced to organize
their own canal company in 1846. Built primarily with local money
and volunteer labor, the eight mile Hagerstown Canal extension opened
for business in 1847.
In December
1847 a flood severed the line between Harrison and Lawrenceburg, and it
took until April 1849 to reopen. Another flood in 1852 led to
abandonment of the Lawrenceburg to Harrison section, and the Cincinnati
& Whitewater Canal became the final leg of the route from then
on. These and other floods put the operating company heavily into
debt. While the canal south of Brookville seems to have operated
relatively successfully from June 1839 to November 1847, the system as a
whole was never open for more than six months out of any given year, and even then only certain sections would be open at any particular time.
Meanwhile, as the canal was having
difficulty with floods and maintenance, new railroads started siphoning off what little traffic the canal had left. On October 4, 1853, the Indianapolis &
Cincinnati Railroad Company (I&C) began operations from Indianapolis to
Lawrenceburg with a riverboat connection to Cincinnati. The Ohio
& Mississippi Railroad was opened a year later through
Lawrenceburg, but lengthy trackage rights and an incompatible
track gauge disqualified that as an option for the I&C to
reach Cincinnati. However, low river levels in the summer
of 1854 strangled riverboat operations, and the I&C
begrudgingly engaged the O&M to lay a third rail to
Cincinnati for I&C cars to operate. The expense of
this arrangement made it only a short-term operation. The
I&C started eyeing the financially troubled Whitewater and
Cincinnati & Whitewater Canal as a potential avenue to extend its
tracks to booming Cincinnati, and also into the hinterlands of
Indiana.
In 1855 Henry Valette filed suit against the canal company for failing
to make interest payments on the bonds he purchased in 1842. A receiver
was
appointed but was unable to improve the situation. Both canals
failed and were shut down in 1856. Citizens petitioned the Indiana
legislature during the 1861-62 session to build a railroad over the
towpath of the canal. It was sold at auction in 1862 to Henry C.
Lord, president of the Indianapolis & Cincinnati Railroad, though
legal issues delayed the final deed transfer until December 5,
1865.
On April 18, 1861, the Cincinnati &
Indiana Railroad Company was incorporated as a subsidiary to
build a railroad from Cincinnati to the Ohio and Indiana border
connecting with the I&C. They purchased the defunct Cincinnati & Whitewater Canal property
for its route to downtown, and it opened just two years later.
Railroads generally preferred to build their tracks on towpaths rather
than canal beds due to drainage concerns, but between Cincinnati and
Cleves they used the canal bed and the towpath somewhat interchangeably
depending on what worked for the surrounding terrain and any crossing
streets or property accesses. While the mainline to Lawrenceburg diverged from the Cincinnati &
Whitewater Canal bed after crossing the Great Miami River on a bridge supported by the old canal aqueduct piers, it picked up
the route of the lower part of the Whitewater Canal, abandoned after the flood of 1852, in Elizabethtown for its
journey to Lawrenceburg. The branch line to Harrison
was also constructed at this time, following the Cincinnati
& Whitewater Canal north from Valley Junction near Hooven. From Valley Junction, the railroad mostly runs on the towpath to the west/south of the old canal bed.
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Underneath the Dry Fork Creek
bridge, Kilby Road is sitting on the old canal aqueduct piers, and the
railroad is on newer stone piers, likely because the towpath had a
wooden trestle supporting it originally. |
It does not
appear that an effort was made to retain any part of the Cincinnati
& Whitewater Canal by the railroad. However, numerous mills
and factories in Harrison, Brookville, Metamora, Laurel, and
Connersville had leases to use water power from the canal. The
significant change in elevation over its length made it a good source of
water power, and the railroad had to honor those agreements. The
White Water Valley Railroad (WVRR) which was created as a subsidiary of
the I&C, reached Connersville in the spring
of 1867 and Hagerstown in 1868, leaving much of the canal intact and
flowing by its side, with local hydraulic companies formed to handle maintenance. This proximity caused problems for the
railroad, since floods that inundated the canal also washed out the
railroad on a regular basis. For this reason, as well as
out-of-the-way connections with other railroads, it was never more than a
minor branch line. Initially run
by the I&C, the WVRR operated independently for several years.
In 1890 it leased itself to the Big Four due to financial
troubles. The I&C itself would be acquired by the
Big Four in 1906 and later the New York Central. They operated
commuter trains from Connersville and Harrison into Cincinnati, and they
briefly operated through trains and parlor cars from Cincinnati to Fort
Wayne, changing at Connersville to the tracks of the Lake Erie &
Western Railroad.
The little used section between Connersville and Hagerstown was
abandoned by NYC 1931, with the track removed in 1936, and all
passenger service ended in 1933. Local freight continued with steam
locomotives until 1957, and diesel freights operated until discontinued
by the NYC's successor, Penn Central in 1972. The present Whitewater Valley
Railroad was formed as a not-for-profit corporation in 1972 and began
weekend passenger operations in 1974 on 25 miles of leased Penn Central
track between Connersville and Brookville. After a substantial washout
closed the track between Metamora and Brookville in 1974, Penn
Central removed that track in 1976. Freight
operation from Brookville to Valley Junction were taken over in 1979 by
the newly formed Indiana & Ohio Railway. Track between Connersville and Beeson's Station was sold to Indiana
Hi-Rail Corporation in 1981, and the line between Metamora and
Connersville was sold to the non-profit Whitewater Valley Railroad in
1983. Operation of the heritage railroad is conducted by
volunteers, and track has been rehabilitated to provide passenger
excursion trains pulled by historic diesel locomotives. One route,
the Valley Flyer, operates from Connersville to Metamora, while another
operates as the Metamora Local, carrying passengers south on a two mile
excursion along the restored Whitewater Canal, past the canal boat
dock, a working aqueduct, and a restored lock.
Back in the Cincinnati area, operations are based out of I&O's yard
at Valley
Junction. I&O is now owned and operated by Genesee &
Wyoming, who acquired the railroad in their 2012 purchase of
RailAmerica. Along Kilby Road near I-275, 84 Lumber has a
siding. On the other side of I-275, a new spur and loop track was
built in late 2019 for the Valley Asphalt Corporation facility.
Immediately north of there, Kilby Road crosses from the west side of the
tracks to the east side before crossing Dry Fork Creek. The
railroad and road bridge over the creek use old aqueduct supports
from the Cincinnati & Whitewater Canal, as did the CL&A
interurban which ran between the railroad and the road from 1900 to
1930. The road
is on the aqueduct piers, while the railroad is on the towpath.
The Cincinnati, Inc
machine tools plant still has three spur tracks into their facility, but
they are long disused and the crossing on Kilby has been pulled
up. Siemer Milling Company in West
Harrison is the last customer on the line. Active track ends two
miles west of Siemer at IN-46 just past the I-74 US-52 exit, and there
are rumors of some new plants being developed near there that would
utilize rail service. The track is still mostly
in place past IN-46, but it has been paved over in some
locations
between Cedar Grove and Brookville, and it is overgrown and not maintained.
The tracks end at the Owens
Corning Brookville Roofing Plant, which for a time was the only customer
on the line. They provided business of roughly 1,000 carloads per
year, but after a washout in approximately 2014, I&O, Owens
Corning, and the Indiana Department of Transportation couldn't come to
an agreement on covering the cost of repairs. Norfolk Southern
then established a transloading facility in Camden, Ohio to pick up the
slack. While there are rumbles that Owens Corning isn't
particularly happy with the new arrangement, they still dismantled all
their rail unloading equipment and paved over the tracks at their
plant. The Whitewater Canal Trail, bits
of the railroad, and also functioning portions of the canal itself appear a few
miles west of Brookville to Metamora, after which point the Whitewater
Valley Railroad operation runs to Connersville. Beyond there, the
Connersville & New Castle Railroad (CNUR) operates the tracks
through Cambridge City to New Castle.