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.