Jim Maurer oversees the model train display, a replica of a portion of the Syracuse-Milford Railway, in the Old Bag Factory in Goshen. InkFreeNews Photo by Tim Ashley.

By Tim Ashley
InkFreeNews

GOSHEN — Part of the history of a nearly forgotten railway is being remembered by the Indiana Model Train Visitors Club. Syracuse-Milford Railway was incorporated in order to transport marl to the Sandusky Portland Cement Company factory at Syracuse Lake.

A replica of a portion of the old railway was built and is on display in a corner of a room upstairs in the Old Bag Factory in Goshen where the club is open Saturdays to allow people to see its model train display.

“We thought it would be a nice layout for the area,” said Jim Maurer, one of the club members.

N-scale model trains are used in the layout and it is focused on an area near where the B&O Railroad depot once stood in Syracuse. Syracuse-Milford Railway was a 6-mile line “so we had to condense things,” Maurer said.

In addition to the depot, the layout has a cement company building, grain elevator and the B&O tracks among other details. Maurer said he found photos of the railway in the Syracuse-Wawasee Historical Museum and also online.

Elmer Sulzer’s book “Ghost Railroads of Indiana” includes some information about the railway and Newspaper Archives of Indiana would also have references to the railway in old newspaper articles.

Maurer said it took three to four years to build the layout and it was worked on when time was available. Bill Bigler donated model kits to the club and some of the buildings in the layout were built from scratch. The trees are mostly made out of weeds.

When club founder Al Miller passed away, his kids took his model train layout so an empty spot became available in the room at the Old Bag Factory.

“It was a local, short line railway,” Maurer said of the Syracuse-Milford Railway, so it was chosen for the next layout.

The layout is approximately 3.5 by 7 feet in size, Maurer noted. As of early December, only a few details remained to be added to the layout.

It can be seen from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays in an upstairs room of the Old Bag Factory, 1100 Chicago Ave., Goshen.

History Of Railway

Syracuse-Milford Railway had three steam engines and was incorporated Feb. 23, 1907. Marl, rock or soil consisting of clay and lime, was dug out of the bottom of both Waubee Lake and Syracuse Lake and transported by the railway to the cement company factory. The railway was also used to connect to what is now the Norfolk Southern Railroad just south of Milford for outgoing shipments.

There was also a junction with the B&0 Railroad in Syracuse.

During 1907 the tracks were laid and the railway crossed the countryside through Van Buren and Turkey Creek townships. There was also a spur coming off the line around Waubee Lake.

Controversy developed in 1907 when many living along the railway route sold some of their land thinking the railroad would be used for passenger service also. But according to what the late historian Ron Sharp wrote in “Sharp’s Chronicles: A History of Syracuse Vol. 2,” the railway announced in June 1907 it would only be hauling marl.

Sometime around 1923 the railway was no longer active because the State Legislature had passed a law forbidding the removal of marl from lakes. Sandusky went out of business and there was no longer a need for the railway. Right of way property was returned to the adjacent property owners.

A few traces remain of Syracuse-Milford Railway including some stretches of the right of way still being visible. There is a concrete abutment remaining from where the railway crossed a ditch along Bowser Road between Syracuse and Milford, and another abutment is located near Wawasee Bowl in Syracuse.

In a wooded area along CR 1150N, just west of CR 250E, part of the foundation remains of the Pleasant View Chapel Church of the Brethren, which the railway was close to.

An up close view of a portion of the model train layout in the Old Bag Factory. Photo by Tim Ashley.