South shore plans weekend outages between Gary and South Bend
Written by jrood
The South Shore is alerting passengers to a series of planned temporary weekend construction outages. The next weekend outage is planned for October 2-4. During these construction related weekend outages the South Shore Line will not operate trains or shuttle bus service in either direction between South Bend, Ind., and Gary Metro Center beginning 2:30 a.m. Saturday thru 3:00 a.m. Monday.
The remaining weekend
outages for 2010 include October 2-4, October 23-25 and November 6-8
The South Shore will
operate regular weekend train service between Gary Metro Center and Chicago.
NICTD is in the second year
of a three-year effort to modernize its overhead wire between Michigan City and
Gary, Ind. The overhead wire, or
catenary, supplies electricity for train propulsion. This $18-million project
will replace more than 100 miles of electrical conductor, some of which dates
back to the 1920s. This wire is old, brittle and subject to failure. These
failures are the single leading cause of significant service disruptions and
lengthy train delays.
The construction plan calls
for a contractor to upgrade many of the components under traffic. However, the
contractor must have uninterrupted weekend access to the track in order remove
old wire and suspend new wire. Nearly all of Phase 2 work will be done in
single- track territory requiring temporary weekend service outages.
During these outages,
Amtrak will stop three additional Wolverine trains in Michigan City, providing
weekend service to and from Chicago.
