After a nice holiday weekend, we had a gorgeous day and drove to Muncie, Indiana. Our goal was to explore Indiana’s Longest Rail Trail – Cardinal Greenway Trail. We planned to walk from the Cardinal Greenway Muncie Depot Trailhead to Mansfield Park then turn around and cross the Kitselman Bridge. Here we planned to follow the White River Trail past McCulloch Park and back to the Cardinal Greenway trail at the Cardinal Greenway McCulloch Trailhead. Then follow the Cardinal Greenway back to the depot. Sometimes despite planning and exploring online, things don’t go as planned. Despite that, we had a wonderful walk and enjoyed our visit to the trails.
History of the Depot
The Muncie Depot, built by the Cincinnati, Richmond, and Muncie Railroad, opened in 1901. Nine years later, it belonged to the Chesapeake & Oil line and continued to serve passengers until 1949 and freight until 1950. From 1950 to 1973 Muncie Gear Works used it as an office. Then in 1973, Amtrak started using the platform and parking lot for passenger services. This continued until 1985. From 1985 until 1993, the depot stood vacant and the platform was unused. In 1993, Cardinal Greenways acquired the building and 60 miles of CSX right-of-way. Restoration of the building took many years, and in 2004 it was opened as the headquarters for Cardinal Greenways.
Today the building is a beautiful spot to start your exploration of the Cardinal Greenways, Indiana’s longest rail trail.
Our Adventure
We started our adventure by parking at the Muncie Depot and walking on the trail to the right of the depot. Nearly immediately, we crossed two fairly busy roads – E. Wysor St. and N. Hackley St. After that we started to enter a wooded area with the railroad tracks on our right-hand side. As we walked, a train passed us. We’ve walked many rail trails, but this is only the second time that we’ve walked close to a train. That was exciting for Sunny as the train was fairly noisy. We continued on the trail until we came to N. Brady St. As we crossed the street we saw a sign indicating that the trail was closed. Normally we pay attention to these signs, but as we crossed two bicyclists, who had come from the closed section of the trail, crossed the street. We decided to see how far we could walk before we came to whatever caused this section of trail to be closed.
This section of the trail quickly exited the woods and traversed next to the White River. We found a nice spot with benches that overlooked the water. This was a great spot for a quick water break since it was a sunny, warm day. We continued on the trail past the driveway to Phillips Outdoor Center and under a railroad bridge. At this point we found out why the trail was closed; the trail ended. We turned around an retraced our steps back to the depot.
Since we drove nearly two hours to get to Muncie, we didn’t want to leave after walking barely two miles. We decided to continue walking past the depot to see if we could find the White River Trail. We walked behind McGuff Roofing and then the trail became a little more wooded. Shortly after this, we came to the Greenway Pocket Park. What a lovely little park! Of course we stopped for a few photos before continuing and crossing the river via a pedestrian bridge.
Once we crossed the river, we found the White River Trail and started walking along the White River on it. This took us to McCulloch Park, but unfortunately some damage from high winds had toppled several trees and much of the park was blocked off. We continued on the trail past the park until we came to the River Overlook at Bunch Blvd. By this time, it was pretty warm so we turned around and returned to the car.
It was such a nice day and the grounds of the depot so nice, that we decided to have a picnic lunch under a tree. We walked just over 4.5M, which wasn’t quite as long as planned, but still a nice walk. We enjoyed exploring both trails and the depot grounds.
Sunny’s Perspective
I liked this trail because there were a lot of great smells in the grass along the trail. My favorite part was when we walked along the river. I really wanted to get down to the water, but that didn’t happen. We did see some geese at McCulloch Park and that was pretty exciting. My favorite part was sharing apple slices at the depot. I even got to go inside the depot, which was pretty interesting.
Our Rating
Sunny and I rate Cardinal Greenway, Indiana’s Longest Rail Trail, 3 out of 4 paws up. It’s a nice trail, but we did not enjoy walking across two quite busy roads at the start. We would recommend taking the trail to the left of the depot. This section is a bit nicer, especially with the lovely pocket park. We also liked walking along the river on the White River Trail. All in all this is a nice place for a walk. On the sections of the trails that we walked, we did not find any port-o-potties. The depot has a restroom that is open daily from 10 – 4P. This is a great trail for those in the area and accessible for everyone regardless of their mobility.
How Do I Get There?
Use 700 E. Wysor St. as the location in GPS. From I-69 take exit 245 – US-35/IN-28 toward Muncie. Continue for nearly 7 miles, then turn right onto Wheeling Ave and continue for another 6 miles. Turn left onto Wysor St. and after half a mile look for the Cardinal Greenways Headquarters sign and turn left into the parking lot. The Cardinal Greenways trail is behind the depot.
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