Chicago, Indiana and Southern Railroad
former railroad in Illinois and Indiana

The Chicago, Indiana and Southern Railroad (reporting mark CI&S) is a former railroad which operated in the states of Illinois and Indiana during the early 20th century. The CI&S formed in 1906 from the consolidation of the two other railroads: the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Railroad and the Indiana Harbor Railroad. The new railroad also owned the capital stock of the Danville and Indiana Harbor Railroad. The stock of the new company itself was wholly owned by the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway and the Michigan Central Railroad, both of which were part of the New York Central system. A 1907 report called the CI&S a "tributary to the Lake Shore." The railroad operated two lines: a north–south line between Indiana Harbor (East Chicago, Indiana) and Danville, Illinois, and a line from the Spring Valley coalfields at Seatonville, Illinois, to South Bend, Indiana. Together the two lines controlled 301 miles (484 km) of track. In 1914 the CI&S was one of several railroads consolidated to form the modern New York Central Railroad.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Chicago, Indiana and Southern Railroad” as former railroad in Illinois and Indiana. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as former railroad in Illinois and Indiana. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2963278. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1907 and 1914.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chicago, Indiana and Southern Railroad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.