South Shore projects right on track
Commuter line eyes post-pandemic economic recovery
The coming year will be the busiest for construction along the South Shore Line in more than a century.
The commuter service’s route between South Bend and Chicago hasn’t changed fundamentally since the first rails were laid between 1906 and 1908.
But after years of planning for two major projects, and seeking funding for them from state, local and federal governments, construction work for both is expected to begin in the new year.
The final funding step for the West Lake Corridor — a new, 7.8-mile rail link between the Munster/Dyer border and northern Hammond, plus four new stations — happened Oct. 28, when Federal Transit Administration Acting Administrator Jane Williams signed a document pledging federal support for the $945 million project. More than 60% of the project’s cost is coming from state and local funds.
Federal funding for the Double Track project — a second set of rails between Gary and Michigan City, along with new stations at Miller and Michigan City and an improved route through Michigan City — could arrive Thursday.
The FTA signaled its support for the Double Track project by allocating $100 million in advance funding approval in 2020.
The $491 million project, which is a key piece of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s Next Level Agenda, will speed passenger rail service between Gary and Michigan City as well as make critical safety improvements at grade crossings and platform improvements at five stations, according to a release from Holcomb’s office.
Most of the properties needed for the West Lake Corridor have been acquired, South Shore Line President Michael Noland said, except for some commercial properties in Hammond.
Property demolition and utility relocation will be the first visible
work there, Noland said.
Because West Lake is a designbuild project, the contracting firms — H.L. Paschen and Ragnar Benson Construction — are busy now on the project’s detailed design.
“We’re not determining the means and methods” for the contractors, Noland said. “We only handed them a 30% design.”
Noland said he expects “significant construction activity” on West Lake to begin in the third quarter of 2021, starting in north Hammond with an overpass over three sets of railroad tracks and several streets. The new Gateway station is to be built above a new ground-level Hammond station on the existing South Shore route.
From Hammond, Noland said, construction work will progress south before finishing at the Munster/Dyer border.
Noland has said West Lake trains could begin running in 2025 — or 2026, if unanticipated delays crop up.
The Double Track project is a more conventional one, with design preceding the award of construction contracts.
That project will be broken into five contracts.
The largest one will include work on the right of way, tracks, bridges, signals, power lines for the trains, and new boarding platforms at Gary’s Miller stop, downtown Michigan City and Ogden Dunes/Portage.
There will be separate contracts for new stations at Miller and at downtown Michigan City, where the station and a parking garage will be built behind the façade of the old 11th Street station. Two more separate contracts will cover a new parking lot at Ogden Dunes/Portage and an expanded one at Dune Park.
As with West Lake, Noland said, the early work on Double Track will involve demolition and utility relocation, before new tracks can be installed.
“We want to get the foundational work done in 2021,” he said.
The Indiana Department of Transportation also will be involved in the Double Track project at Miller.
Part of the U.S. 12 route in that area will be shifted south to U.S. 20, and the railroad will take over the land where U.S. 12 runs now between Clay and Lake streets. The U.S. 12 relocation is expected to begin in the fall of 2021, INDOT public relations representative Cassy Bajek said.
Noland noted also that work already has begun on one part of the new West Lake service.
Workers at the South Shore’s shops in Michigan City have been rehabbing the first of an eventual 32 existing South Shore rail cars for use on the West Lake route.
The cars are being stripped to the “bare bones,” Noland said, and all the mechanical components, seats and windows, plus bathrooms, replaced. That work should be done in mid-2024, he said.
The railroad will be buying new cars to replace those on the existing service.
And while West Lake and Double Track will be the largest South Shore projects in many years, the railroad recently completed a lower-profile but important one.
Noland said the railroad recently received the Federal Railroad Administration’s approval for its Positive Train Control installation, a $100 million project — paid for entirely with the railroad’s funds — to install a computeroperated system that can take over a train’s controls if the operator becomes disabled.
Installation began several years ago, and a 5% South Shore fare increase in 2018 helped pay for it.
The FRA has mandated that all the country’s railroads use PTC and set a Dec. 31, 2020, deadline to install it.
But while construction activity has deadlines and concrete results, there’s less certainty over the near future of the South Shore’s ridership.
Business shutdowns and limitations from the COVID-19 pandemic, along with fears of contracting the disease in crowded areas, cut the South Shore’s ridership to about 5% of previous levels in early 2020. Later, that rose to about 20%.
When will trains start filling with riders again?
“We are all using our best judgment, evaluating the information we’re hearing,” Noland said. “We’re projecting that we’ll begin to see a return to ridership in the mid to late second quarter (of 2021).
“Then we’ll have to see what the post-COVID economy looks like.”