SOUTH BEND, Ind. — South Bend’s redevelopment commission has approved a request to start preliminary engineering work for a downtown South Shore Line commuter station, ABC 57 News reports.
The request identifies the city’s former Union Station as the preferred site for the station. It was one of five possibilities identified in a study completed earlier this year [see “South Bend gets first look at South Shore station options,” Trains News Wire, April 20, 2018]. The funds approved last week will determine whether the station should be above ground or at grade, examine the stability of existing bridges that might be used, and other issues.
The east end of South Shore’s commuter service is currently the South Bend airport, more than 4 miles from the proposed downtown site. It is reached by a circuitous route that currently requires 10 minutes to travel the last 2 miles. A study is also underway to consider a more direct route to the airport; that study will continue to determine the best option, or if both stations are a possibility.
The Union Station choice is so obvious, it’s across the street from Four Winds Park, where the South Bend Cubs play, the Class-A affiliate to the Chicago Cubs.
The South Bend Cubs just signed another extension to their affiliation until 2022. unheard of in single A.
So not only would you get the commuter traffic, but weekend Notre Dame football and now summer weekend baseball for Cubs upstarts.
As for that “winding” route to the airport……that line was originally an industrial sub serving the large Bendix Aviation (now Honeywell) plant built for WWII and then ran north to the gravel pit on North Maple (since renamed Bendix Drive). Later the lead was extended northward to a new industrial park north of the airport.
After that, the lead to the South Bend Airport was built and a small siding next to the gravel pit was done. The rail extension north of the airport has since been pulled up and the airport station is pretty much it. There are no more commercial customers on the line. The switch to the gravel pit has been removed, though the rail is still in the ground.
If they want to improve the airport line, simply purchase the no longer used Bendix-Honeywell parking lots on the east side of the plant and put in a wye, which would allows a train any direction to make the turn into the airport lead. Abandon the line on the north side of the Honeywell plant as it only serves to obstruct Honeywell employees trying to cross the tracks to get to work and probably slows the trains down.
That seems way more functional from my point of view.
If that is the station at Lafayette & South St., it would be a lot better for Amtrak, too. The current Amtrak station is an ugly block building off in a half-abandoned neighborhood.
The ironic thing is that the current Amtrak station was built by the South Shore in 1970 when they eliminated street running in South Bend. The SS moved to the airport station in 1992.