REDISCOVERING AN OLD IDEA?

The editorial board at Chicago's Tribune recently hailed the completion of the South Shore Line's double tracking project as far as Michigan City, which included a restoration of more frequent trains.

On May 14, just in time for warm-weather trips to the Indiana Dunes National Park, the line, run by the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD), will introduce a new expanded train schedule, a consequence of the completed double tracking of its electric-powered corridor lining Chicago and Northwest Indiana.

The improvements are very impressive. The South Shore Line, which was built between 1901 and 1908, now will offer an additional 14 weekday trains, including new express service that will take travelers from Chicago’s Millennium Station to the lovely dunes in just 57 minutes. As anyone headed to Indiana and Michigan resort towns will attest, those times are tough to beat by car, especially during the morning and evening rush. Improvements in addition to the new 18 miles of double tracking include new stations, better accessibility at existing stations, more parking, fewer at-grade crossings and expanded accommodations for bikes. Michigan City, a lakefront town with much potential that needs a lot of help given its struggling outlet mall and sleepy downtown, will be one of the major beneficiaries with its new 11th Street station. And students at Notre Dame now will find it much easier to hop a train to spend a day or a weekend in Chicago.

A few years ago I stumbled upon a party of North Carolina State fans enroute to a game in the shadow of Touchdown Jesus.  The South Bend service has not yet been augmented, the line east of Shops is still an interurban time machine, and the Morning and Evening Hot Shots drag lots of empty cars from or to South Bend thanks to new regulations that make adding or dropping cars at Shops only slightly less of a production than rendezvous and docking at the Space Station, while South Bend's government wrangles over whether to bring the trains to the west side of the airport, speeding up that trip, or return the trains to somewhere downtown, possibly the still-standing joint station next to the baseball park..

None of which deterred a writer to the Tribune, a few days later, from Thinking Big.  (Quoting from the May 8 edition on paper):

These upgraded electric-powered double tracks provide a real opportunity for expanded service from Chicago to the East, especially as Amtrak struggles to bring in trains over freight-owned or controlled tracks into Union Station.

Imagine inviting Brightline, the company building high-speed trains from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, to build high-speed tracks from this beautiful new asset to South Bend all the way to the Acela line on the East Coast.

I wonder if the corporate shell of the Goshen South Bend and Chicago Railway is still available.  Yes, Brightline being active at building Passenger Rail projects is encouraging, and yes, Indianans taking an interest in Regional Rail once again (first let's restore daily service between Chicago and Indianapolis, that once offered by a private contractor who got out); and yet there's nothing like excess enthusiasm to midwive disappointment.