Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1893 — THAT ELECTRIC RAILROAD AGAIN. [ARTICLE]

THAT ELECTRIC RAILROAD AGAIN.

7 . A Under the heading “Gas Belt Electric Line” the Logansport Journal devotes a long article to the proposed gigantic electric railroad system to which reference has been made several times, in this paper. According to the Journal a large force of men is already at work upon the toad-bed of the line, between Noblesville and Indianapolis. The Jbtzrna? prints a diagram of the proposed system. It shows the main line running from Indianapolis directly north to Noblesville, and from Noblesville northwest through Frankfort to Lafayette, and from Lafayette on to Chicago, in an air line. The diagram does not locate Rensselaer, but a direct line from the center of Lafayette to the center of the business district of Chicago, will not miss Rensselaer more than a mile, or two miles at most. From Noblesville branch, lines radiate through thj gas region, taking in Marion, Muncie, Anderson, Kokomo, and extending to Fort Wayne, Logansport, Peru, &c. The main line from Indianapolis [through Rensselaer] to Chicago is to be double tracked, the branch lines are single track. The corporate name of the company is “The Chicago <fc Central Indiana Electric Railway.” The proposed lines aggregate over 500 miles in length and are estimated to cost between $8,000,000 and $10,000,000. The head man of the company in management is E. J. Pennington, the electrician and inventor of Pennington’s air ship. The company bought Pennington’s patents for automatic heating appliances, and appurtenances to electric cars, and then employed him to superintend the road. The head man financially is said to be Thos. Wilkinson, a very wealthy Englishman, the description of whose past financial career as given by the Journal, reminds one greatly of the hyperbolical and flamboyant language in which the plans and prospectuses of Pennington’s air ship were promulgated, a year or two ago.