The South Shore commuter line in northwest Indiana is alerting passengers to a series of planned temporary weekend construction outages. The next weekend outage is planned for August 28-30. During these construction related weekend outages, the South Shore Line will not operate trains in either direction between South Bend and Gary Metro Center beginning 2:30 a.m. Saturday thru 3:00 a.m. Monday. The South Shore will operate regular weekend train service between Gary Metro Center and Chicago.

The South Shore will not provide shuttle bus service between South Bend and Gary Metro Center during these temporary weekend outages because of the high number of weekend passengers and variability of demand.  Stations affected by this outage include South Bend, Hudson Lake, Carroll Ave. and 11th St. in Michigan City, Beverly Shores, Dune Park, Portage/Ogden Dunes, and Miller. During these weekend outages passengers are encouraged to drive to East Chicago Station.

NICTD is in the second year of a three-year effort to modernize its overhead wire between Michigan City and Gary. 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 the 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.