CHESTERTON, Ind. — South Shore Line commuter rail service has been experiencing some growing pains with its expanded schedule, to the point that Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District President Mike Noland on Friday issued a letter to riders vowing to do better.
With the completion of its $378 million Double Track project between Gary and Michigan City, Ind., the South Shore increased its schedule on May 14 to include 14 additional weekday trains and promised travel times as fast as 67 minutes between Michigan City and Chicago, and 1 hour, 50 minutes between South Bend, Ind., and Chicago. [see “South Shore to introduce expanded schedules …,” Trains News Wire, April 19, 2024]. Noland’s letter notes that train No. 8 is meeting that schedule, and trains No. 102 and 104 (the first two trains of the day to Chicago from Michigan City) are on time daily.
“That being said, we are running consistently late on many other trains, incurring an average of 10-20 minutes of delay, with some trains exceeding these delays,” Noland wrote. “… We need to deliver the service that we promised, and I, along with the entire South Shore Line team, promise that we will do everything in our power to make this happen.”
Public Radio station WBOI reports that a number of factors have contributed to the schedule issues, ranging from a greater impact created by existing slow orders to construction projects in Hammond, Ind., and downtown Chicago. This is why Noland wrote that “our performance issues are not due to a lack of effort. Our employees, especially our train crews, have been simply exceptional during this challenging time.” He wrote that the South Shore has identified more than 40 ideas to improve service; some have already been implemented and others will be shortly.
“While it may be a lot to ask, please give us the time to work out our schedule issues,” the letter continues. “It has been suggested to me that our schedule is unrealistic and that we should adopt a simple solution of adding more running time to our schedules. I can commit to you that all options to improve service are on the table, and, at the end of this process, there are trains for which we may add schedule time. But to do so right now would be taking the easy way out, and it would not maximize our incredible investment in the railroad.”
Noland promised to provide progress reports on a biweekly basis.
The full letter is available here.
— Updated May 27 at 11:15 a.m. to fix link to Noland letter.
Simply amazing…a director not taking the easy way out, as it should be for ALL commuter/transit operations(not to mention Amtrak/VIA).
And what happens when the West Lake Corridor comes on line? Hopefully they’ll have things squared away by then.