NS Vine Street Bridge (Urbana)

In 1869, the Indianapolis, Crawfordsville & Danville Railroad constructed 85 miles of new railroad, extending from Indianapolis, Indiana to Danville, Illinois.  At the same time, the Danville, Urbana, Bloomington & Pekin Railroad Company (DUB&P) constructed 117 miles of new railroad, connecting Danville with Pekin, Illinois.  The two lines operated jointly, connecting the railroad hub of Indianapolis with the Illinois River at Pekin.  The two railroads were reorganized as the Peoria & Eastern Railway (P&E) in 1890.  The P&E was affiliated with the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, known as the Big Four.   This route provided the Big Four with a crucial branch line to reach the Peoria area, which provided an inland port connection (via the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers) for the railroad. The route also connected to many other moderate sized cities in Illinois, such as Danville, Champaign-Urbana and Bloomington.  The Big Four came under the control of the New York Central Railroad (NYC) in 1906.  The NYC was controlled by railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, and operated an extensive network of railroad lines in the eastern United States.  The P&E formally merged into the Big Four in 1913, and the Big Four was operated as a separate entity from the NYC until approximately 1930. 

This route was maintained by the NYC, and the parallel Lake Erie & Western Railroad (LE&W), which was controlled by NYC, was sold to the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad (Nickel Plate) in 1922.  While the LE&W route did not connect with Indianapolis, the two routes interchanged at Bloomington.  In 1968, NYC merged with rival Pennsylvania Railroad to form Penn Central Railroad.  The Penn Central Railroad was short lived, as it was plagued by operations issues stemming from the merger of the two systems.  The railroad filed for bankruptcy in 1974, and many of the lines were reorganized into Conrail.  Conrail was formed by the Federal Government to take over profitable lines of multiple bankrupt railroad companies in the eastern United States.  A short segment in Indianapolis would not be included in Conrail, and would be abandoned.  The section between Crawfordsville, Indiana and Olin, Indiana would be abandoned in 1982, followed by the section from Bloomington to Pekin in 1984. In 1997, Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation agreed to purchase the bankrupt Conrail System.  CSX took control of the remaining portions of the line between Indianapolis and Crawfordsville and between Bloomington and Olin, and NS took control of the line between Champaign and Danville.  The section between Danville and Urbana would be abandoned in 1999, and the segment to Olin would be sold to the Vermillion Valley Railroad in 2003.  Today, CSX operates the Indianapolis to Crawfordsville portion as the Crawfordsville Branch.  Norfolk Southern operates the Urbana to Mansfield portion of the line as the Mansfield Branch. Between Mansfield and Bloomington, the line is out of service, but has not been formally abandoned.  Negotiations were underway to acquire the right-of-way for trail use.  The Vermillion Valley Railroad continues to operate a short segment east of Danville.