Eastern Railroad Discussion > Indiana Railroad Glides Over Lake Lemon

While smaller than the famous Tulip Trestle on the Indiana Railroad's Indianapolis Subdivision, the Shuffle Creek Viaduct about 10 miles north of Bloomington, IN is no less impressive. Completed in 1906 (the same year as Tulip), it is arguably the most scenic place on the line. While there are no dedicated viewing platforms, there are plenty of areas to pull of to the side of the road and get good angles, and if you're up for a stone-stepping hike across a creek, the other side offers some even better views. 

For the past few weeks I've been taking the time while visiting home from college to go out almost every day to locations along the railroad in south-central Indiana. On this cloudy but still pleasant Monday evening, train HWSA with healthy cut of stacks glides downgrade across the trestle led by a pair of the usual SD9043MACs.

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When I was down at Bloomington attending IU in the mid 80s, I visted the trestle near Lake Lemon. (I graduated from IU in Bloomington in May 1986 with a B.S in business,) Anyway, I was up on the approach to one end and noticed that there was a cemetery on both sides of the track. It lead me to believe that the RR perhaps cut through the cemetery and some graves were moved? Wasn't this IC line built relatively later than most railroads in the area? One of my dorm mates was into boating and would boat on Lake Lemon. 

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublicatios.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/20 17:22 by wabash2800.

It did cut through the graveyard. This line is in fact one of the newest in the area (finished in 1906-ish) and built jointly by the IC and Indianapolis Southern Railway which folded only a few years after the line's completion. It had a lot of competition getting land in to Bloomington as the Monon had a strong hold on the town since the mid 1800s.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/20 08:57 by retlaw121.

Just out of curiosity I went looking on Google Earth for the two different trestles there near Bloomington, the Shuffle Creek Viaduct, and the Tulip Trestle. One of those bucket list items, well two actually.

I found that Google Earth has trouble some times matching up different photographs. The two photographs are the same, just one zoomed in closer, and it was taken on June 5, 2018.


Ron

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I've seen that too.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Thanks for the video.

That's quite a healthy cut. Without the stacks, it would have been a very short train.
Does that train run every day? I went to college in Indianapolis, but a friend and I visited these bridges a couple of times over those years. Those were the days when you could explore, take your own photos and not be harassed by the railfan police that are quite prevalent today on social media.
Having said that, for this and other reasons, I would never do today the things we did then on those bridges. They are very impressive structures.

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Two trains with the same engineer (one man crew) run Sunday-Friday. The engineer goes on duty at 14:00 in Indianapolis, brings SAHW down to Switz City, swaps trains with the northbound crew, and returns with HWSA to Indy. He gets to this bridge around 16:00 southbound and around 20:00 northbound.

This bridge had an extremely close call a few years ago where two girls who were trespassing had to duck between the rails as the train passed over them and they miraculously survived. It was caught on the train's camera and given to the media by the railroad as a warning to others.

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Very nice video. Thanks for capturing the climb up toward Unionville tunnel and Bloomington, Indiana. This area is very pretty during the fall season.