NICTD Getting Highliners?

That's what Mass Transit Magazine is reporting.

Indiana's South Shore Commuter Capacity Growing

Updated: January 23rd, 2007 10:03 AM PDT

Keith Benman
The Times

Jan. 20 -- DUNE ACRES, Ind. -- The South Shore commuter railroad soon will order 14 new double-decker rail cars following the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority's approval Tuesday of $17.5 million in funding.

The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, the railroad's operator, is set to begin final price negotiations with the manufacturer and should place its order by March, according to NICTD General Manager Gerald Hanas.

"The commuter rail concept is now firmly entrenched in the region because we are now getting first-class rail assets," Hanas said Thursday at NICTD headquarters.

The cars should be delivered in the second half of 2008 and in service by early 2009. The South Shore currently operates only single-level cars.

In addition to the rail car order, expected to top $50 million, the railroad is three years into a $107 million upgrade of its catenary and signal systems.

The 14 cars will be used to add four new trains per day, which should increase total capacity about 15 percent, Hanas said. Last year, the South Shore carried more than 14,000 passengers per day on a typical weekday.

The railroad attracted 4.21 million passengers last year, which was its highest ridership in almost 50 years.

The double-decker car bodies will be manufactured by Nippon Sharyo, of Japan. They will be assembled in the United States. Nippon Sharyo produces the same type car for Chicago's Metra commuter rail.

The cars need some special features because the South Shore operates differently than Metra, which added to their cost, Hanas said.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Times.

Starting about a year ago when the Dan Ryan Expy rebuild kicked our traffic up, added capacity of some sort became a neccesity. First it was rumblings of leasing old Highliner Mk1 coaches, then buying new coaches, and as of about a month ago, the order was a sure thing. I hope a subdued orange/maroon scheme or striping is included.

Anybody know what special extra's CSS required that Metra doesn't have?

If I had to guess, perhaps an extra set of steps in the center of the cars.

The Metra cars were not equipped for low-level boarding, iirc. But they're still ugly and don't look like MU's (is that personal bias showing through?)

Metra's Highliners have steps and trapdoors. On the older ones, they're on the doors at the end of the train (not at the driving cabs though); on the newer ones, one side of the center door has steps and a trapdoor.

I should clarify: the NEW cars from Nippon Sharyo don't have traps that like the old St. Louis car have--hence the design change.

Yes. They have the traps in a different place.

• Old Highliner—note that the traps are across from the driver's cab. Only one per car, but two per married pair.
• New Highliner—note the location of the trapdoor and steps, underneath one of the center doors.

The newer cars actually have more access points for low-platform boarding than the older ones. They should suit NICTD adequately…

paint them Traction Orange, they'll look as good as ever...

prolly much needed cars due to the loss of some cars through whatever circumstances.

Everyone: That IC Highliner shot is interesting due to the fact that the pair is one of each of the Highliner types built - the older car on the left from the early 70s and the newer Hawker-Siddeley RTA car - only about 2 years old at the time. The orange color difference is notable. As the Highliners are single units and NOT married pairs,where are they turned around if necessary? With the new bilevel gallery Highliner 2 cars-having low-level access is an extra so that small stations do NOT have to have expensive high-level platforms only. I find it interesting that the South Shore would go to these cars-I see it only as an add-on order to METRAs own order - Will the older single-level Sumitomo cars be compatible in any way? What about locomotive-hauled consists? Can a electric locomotive for today's trains work well running on 1500 volts DC? Just my two cents here-MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote:Everyone: That IC Highliner shot is interesting due to the fact that the pair is one of each of the Highliner types built - the older car on the left from the early 70s and the newer Hawker-Siddeley RTA car - only about 2 years old at the time. The orange color difference is notable. As the Highliners are single units and NOT married pairs,where are they turned around if necessary? With the new bilevel gallery Highliner 2 cars-having low-level access is an extra so that small stations do NOT have to have expensive high-level platforms only. I find it interesting that the South Shore would go to these cars-I see it only as an add-on order to METRAs own order - Will the older single-level Sumitomo cars be compatible in any way? What about locomotive-hauled consists? Can a electric locomotive for today's trains work well running on 1500 volts DC? Just my two cents here-MACTRAXX

isnt nippon the same makers of the current fleet?
they could make the controls compatible should they ever need teaming with the (shudder) older cars...


as long as they are operated in pairs, they dont need turning.

I would think they would schedule the trains for the known high capacity runs vs lower capacity times.

I've been told that the cars we have now and the ordered cars will not be able to MU..same as the cars we run will not run with any metra equipment.
Metra and Nictd cars can be coupled together as long as they have a plastic shield covering the pin boxes in place. I've never seen this done before though.

I've never heard of IC or Metra turning a highliner. I do remember seeing quite a few trains with elephant-style coupled coaches of 3+ before there's an opposing facing coach. I think Metra makes a conscious effort to keep blind ends coupled to blind ends, but a few times a day sends 'em out however they can get 'em. For the record, I don't think there's a 1500v DC wye anywhere on the CSS/Metra system. I know there isn't on CSS, and I'm pretty sure IC doesn't have one either.

Well, at bailly there is a wye..just no wire over it anymore. Once upon a time they did turn our cars..something about equal wheel wear (Which I still don't understand) However, they don't wye them anymore.

I just thought of that - great minds think alike. I've never heard of turning the MU's, but this may be before my time (1981). You can tell the Sumitomo cars never get wyed because the can is always on the north side of the car, on the chicago end.

PRRGuy wrote:Once upon a time they did turn our cars..something about equal wheel wear (Which I still don't understand)

That was done waaay back in the early years before turning wheels (i.e. on a wheel lathe) was common ... the reasoning was that by turning the car periodically, the wear on the wheels would be equalized and the wheels would last longer. Chicago Aurora & Elgin used to do the same thing.