A Train runs through it

Indianapolis down to Bargersville. Morgantown south to Helmsburg. Across the Shuffle Creek trestle, then eight and a half miles to the north yard limit. The whistle blows, and Bloomington know it's here. \nTrains roll north and south through Bloomington every day, hauling Indiana coal to power plants, sugar and liquid sweetener for Hershey Chocolate, scrap metal for Chrysler and refrigerators for General Electric.\nFive days a week, trains go from Indianapolis to Bloomington and back. At most, there are about six train movements a day. Students can hear many of them loud and clear -- even at the wee hours of the morning -- because of the whistle that blows for several minutes to announce its arrival.\n"Bloomington is a station along the line," said John Richoff, executive vice-president and chief operations officer for the Indiana Rail Road Company. "There's not a lot of rail traffic in Bloomington." \nOver a century ago, it was a different story. \nRoads numbered few and airline travel was non-existent. Passenger service was available in almost every town in Indiana and across the United States.\nCecil J. Smith, a former editor for the Salem Democrat and Salem Leader, is a volunteer stationmaster at The Depot -- a railroad museum that is part of the John Hay Center in Salem, Ind.\nAccording to Smith, local businessmen wanted a way to link their community to the Ohio River, and in 1851 the first train rolled into Salem. By 1854, the line was completed, connecting local communities together -- including Bloomington.\nThe railroad was originally called the New Albany and Salem Railroad and changed its name many times until 1956, when a line from Indianapolis to Chicago was acquired. \nThe two rail systems crossed at Monon and from then until 1971, it became known as "The Monon Route." \n"The Monon Route was a very important one; it ran passenger trains to a lot of communities in Indiana," Smith said. "As a matter fact, it was known as the 'college route for a while because there were so many colleges located along the route.'" \nIt's no longer in service today and much of the track has been removed.\nTwo railroad companies remain in Bloomington. CSXT, a national corporation, operates a line that runs from the General Electric plant on Curry Pike to downtown Bloomington. \nThe line is considered an "island line." The Indiana Rail Road Company (IRRC) picks up the CSXT freight downtown, hauling it north to Indianapolis or southwest to Newton, Illinois. \nRichard Simons, 83, a retired journalist, co-authored the book, Railroads in Indiana with Francis Parker, a professor at Ball State University. \nSimons rode what is now the IRRC line back and forth from Bloomington to Indianapolis, Ind., while attending IU from 1938-1942. \n"The train went through Brown County, through Helmsburg and Trevlac," Simons said. "It was very scenic." \nHe and retired IU professor Henry Remak used to ride out to Helmsburg and spend the day hiking. \n"We would just pick a direction and walk until about 4:30 or 5 in the evening when it was time to take the train back," Simons said.\nAside from track and old beds, the occasional early morning and late afternoon whistle blasts are the only reminders of a rail network that at one time totaled 6,000 miles in the state of Indiana.\n"The standard whistle signal was two longs a short and a long for a road crossing," said Russell Jackson, a retired engineer. "Back years ago whistles were the only way you knew which way the train was going. You didn't have radios. You didn't have any other communication." \nJackson, 73, began working on the railroad in 1947. He worked his way up as a fireman to an engineer -- first on steam-powered locomotives and eventually onto the modern diesels. He said it's shameful that so much of the railroad system has been lost.\n"You look at the highways now -- they're full," Jackson said. "The trucks have multiplied by dozens. The numbers of vehicles on the road multiply every year. Where do we go from now?"\nTom Hoback is the president and founder of the IRRC. In 1986, they acquired the track running through Bloomington. He remains optimistic about the future of freight trains, maintaining that trains are a fuel-efficient cargo-hauling alternative, helping to relieve highway congestion and improving air quality in metropolitan areas. \n"When the Illinois Central -- the previous owner -- was running this railroad, they moved about 12,000 car loads of freight (equivalent to 48,000 truck loads)," Hoback said. "Last year we moved about eight times as much traffic"