Gilbert B Norman wrote:But back to rails: Many know that, fault notwithstanding, the South Shore's safety record is less than stellar. They are trying to run a contemporary commuter railroad over a Toonerville Trolley infrastructure and the results are in. Incidents I can recall are several encounters of the wrong kind with steel hauling highway trucks at grade X-ings and another at a gauntlet track bridge that involved a head on "meet". There were fatalities in any of these incidents.
Gilbert B Norman wrote:Some improvements to CSS have been made, namely through E Chicago during the '50's (I think there was public funding even back then for that one), but to ride through Gary and Michigan City...well that's pretty darned Toonerville Trolley (can't comment about South Bend; quite "TT" when I last rode, but there has been a line relocation since then).
Due to the age of the posts I'm trying not to relight the fire, but even for 2006 posts these seem to be unfair portrayals of what has become a modern commuter rail line. If you want to talk fatalities perhaps we should look at Chase MD and the Marc vs Amtrak 30 train wrecks. Is MARC a "Toonerville Trolley" for running a stop in front of an Amtrak train? Is Amtrak a failure for running into Conrail engines that ran through a switch in front of their train?
The gauntlet bridge, site of the 1993 fatal collision, had a second bridge added in 1997. There are no gauntlets on the line except for station tracks that keep freight away from high level platforms. The Midwest steel crossing, site of the 1998 fatal collision (caused by a truck driver who, like Ricky Gates, liked to be high) was replaced by a grade separation bridge. Both of these problem spots were repaired long before the 2006 posts.
These are the only two passenger fatal accidents on the line from the single passenger fatality in 1926 to present (2010). I've been able to find two other accidents in this time period where the motorman was killed. Find a railroad that has been operating for 84 years with less fatalities.
South Bend street running ended in the 1970's and NICTD and the airport are working on rebuilding the airport connection to remove the last section of street terrace running. Since the 2006 posts CTC has been installed on most of the line with the last 32 miles funded for CTC installation now. The Kensington Interlocking with CN-IC and Metra is being rebuilt this spring. Michigan City street running will end as soon as NICTD can get approval and budget to move the tracks (as needed for PTC). The money isn't going to come if people have the attitude that the system is junk.
With all due respect, even in 2006 the South Shore was not as bad as portrayed in those 2006 posts. The line has also improved since then. It would be unfortunate if the people way down south in Indy had the same misconceptions about the line as were put forth here. Especially if those misconceptions carried over to preventing NICTD from expanding to serve other communities such as Lowell and Valparaiso (as proposed by NICTD) and Elkhart (as proposed by INDOT).
