fall into receivership and someone else would buy it. He could not close the Nickel Plate either because it cost a fortune to buy. So, the Nickel Plate Road did business, but just enough to keep it solvent. By the advent of the 1920s, the Nickel Plate was an obscure line that earned its keep through the transfer of freight from other rail connections. During the same period Vanderbilt's Lake Shore and Michigan Southern prospered and expanded. Vanderbilt kept most of the rail traffic on his Lake Shore and Michigan Southern. Fewer trains on the Nickel Plate meant that they could move faster, so that is the railroad traffic they went after. By 1888 the Nickel Plate had been dubbed "The Meat Express Line." Observers at Fort Wayne, Indiana, reported six long meat trains every night and a couple of fruit trains during the day. Vanderbilt consolidated many of his railroads into the New York Central Railroad. Over time, the Nickel Plate was reduced as a serious threat to the New York Central and other competing lines. The Van Sweringen era The Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, Ohio, were the next owners of the Nickel Plate. Oris Paxton Van Sweringen and his younger brother Mantis James Van Sweringen were real estate developers who had constructed a rapid transit line from their development at Shaker Heights, Ohio, to downtown Cleveland. As early as 1909, the Van Sweringen brothers proposed a stub-end terminal on Public Square in downtown Cleveland. The Cleveland interurbans and traction companies were in favor of the new terminal and right-of-ways leading to it. The Nickel Plate was the key. It traversed Cleveland from east to west, had a high level crossing of the Cuyahoga River Valley, and was adjacent to the proposed terminal. The Nickel Plate also provided a natural route to the proposed terminal for the Van Sweringen's rapid transit and the other traction lines. Between 1890 and 1913, Cleveland had a fourfold increase in population. Civic and political leaders wanted to clean up the city and started many projects. One was a desire to consolidate all of Cleveland's railroad stations. The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Big Four Railroad shared a crowded lakefront Union Station. The Erie Railroad, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Nickel Plate Road, and the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad all occupied separate stations on the north bluff of