Playland Park Train Returns To South Bend To Ride The Rails Again
SOUTH BEND — A miniature train that provided rides for delighted children during the 1940s at Playland Park in South Bend is back home again for a few days.
The vintage amusement park ride is on display and available for free rides through Saturday during the Studebaker Drivers Club International Meet at the St. Joseph County Fairgrounds.
The antique train, which is powered by a gasoline engine, is owned by Roger List, of Aurora, Colo. He brought it to South Bend this week in the bed of his 1942 Studebaker pickup truck, one of two Studebaker vehicles he owns.
“It’s like a family heirloom,” he said Wednesday while setting up the train on portable tracks at the fairgrounds. He was helped by his wife, Sue, and his nephew, Adam Nehrt.
Playland Park was an amusement park at the northwest corner of Lincoln Way East and Ironwood Drive from 1925 until 1961. (In earlier days, it was known as Springbrook Park.) Playland was a popular destination that included roller coasters, a Ferris wheel, a carousel, a dance hall, a race track and the miniature train, among other attractions.
After the amusement park closed, the site had a nine-hole lighted golf course and a miniature golf course. The property later was sold and now is the site of Indiana University South Bend’s on-campus student apartments.
The small train is a link to the owner’s late father, Adolph “Bosco” List, of Carlyle, Ill., who bought the used ride from Playland Park owner Earl “Pete” Redden in 1949. Roger List still has the signed handwritten receipt for his father’s purchase of the train for $750.
It’s not clear whether Redden sold the train and replaced it with a new one, or if the ride was simply phased out. Newspaper clippings about Playland Park from the 1940s through 1961 make no mention of the miniature train.
A photo published in the September 1947 edition of the Studebaker Spotlight, the auto manufacturer’s in-house magazine, shows children riding in the train at an Aug. 10, 1947, gathering at Playland Park for Studebaker employees and their families.