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E-bikingBikingWalkingRunningBirdingHorseback ridingand more
The Cardinal Greenway is Indiana's longest rail trail, an asphalt path on the old Chesapeake and Ohio corridor from Sweetser and Marion through Muncie to Richmond. It is a farm-country ride: long straight rail grade across open fields, with wooded stretches at the White River in Muncie and the Mississinewa near Jonesboro, and small towns like Gaston, Losantville, and Economy spaced out along the way. Stone mile markers and arched steel bridge rails give it a consistent look end to end. The Grant County gap between Jonesboro and Gaston means about fifteen miles of county road riding for anyone doing the whole thing, and the Richmond end climbs onto the highest, rolling ground of the route.
Cardinal Greenway
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Cardinal Greenway has about 91 to 143 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, walking, running, biking, and birding, with May, September, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Cardinal Greenway!
In half of past years, color along the Cardinal Greenway peaks October 14 to November 2, typically around October 23. The trail has 10% deciduous coverage, with the majority being sugar maple, white ash, northern red oak, black walnut, American elm, American basswood, white oak, shagbark hickory, and green ash.
The Cincinnati, Richmond and Muncie Railroad opened its Wysor Street depot in Muncie in 1901, on a line laid to carry passengers and Appalachian coal between Cincinnati and Chicago. Gas City had boomed in 1887 on the natural gas found under Grant County, and America's first major oil field was being drilled in this corner of Indiana in the same years. The Chesapeake and Ohio took over the line in 1910. From then on freight steadily crowded out passengers, and the C&O ran its last passenger trains here in 1949. Amtrak returned in 1973, and the Cardinal used the depot's outside platform until the train was rerouted in 1986. Freight service ended that same year and shifted through Indianapolis. CSX pulled the rails up from Marion to Richmond by June 1993. That year Cardinal Greenway, Inc. formed as a nonprofit, bought sixty miles of the corridor from CSX, and took on the depot. The first ten miles opened in 1998 from the depot north to County Road 532. Jonesboro to Marion followed in 2001, Wayne County and the Muncie to Gaston stretch in 2002, County Road 532 to Losantville in 2007, Marion to Sweetser in 2008, and Richmond to Losantville in 2011. The restored depot became trail headquarters in 2004. The trail became a National Recreation Trail in 2003 and entered the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Hall of Fame in 2018. Closing the Grant County gap between Gas City and Matthews is the current project.
Sweetser Switch TrailWhite River GreenwayCardinal Equestrian TrailWhitewater Gorge TrailBeechwood Ridge TrailThistlethwaite Trail
