The "Orange Cars"

The wire over IRM's main line is mostly simple or compound catenary. Pantograph-equipped cars are very seldom run at IRM because the rest of the wire there is "fishing line" unsuited for pans.

I was a student at ND from 1960-1965 so, yes, I have memories of the Orange Cars. For us students it was just about the only way to get to Chicago. Back then the South Shore station was at the corner of N. Michigan and W. LaSalle right across from the LaSalle Hotel. I can see from Google Maps that that whole landscape has changed. IIRC, the train started out as one car (or maybe two?), adding a couple of cars in Michigan City. The car from South Bend was always one of the modernized cars. It had two compartments, one smoking and one non-smoking separated by a swinging glass door. The windows didn't open so I'm guessing these cars must have been air-conditioned.

I come from a railroading family (New Haven) and have always had an interest in railroading. Since graduating from ND in 1965 I haven't ridden on the South Shore but I do have good intentions and will do the round-trip from Chicago to SB someday. I was in Chicago two years ago and made it down to the Van Buren St station and got some pictures of a South Shore outbound train.

Oh, and I have a stash of CSS&SB wooden lead pencils (never used!) that I think must go back to the 1960s or 1970s. I'm guessing that a freight sales rep gave them to my father who was Agent, Freight Terminals for the NH in Boston back in the late 50s, 60s, early 70s

I think IRM has a few of those pan adapters for the trolley wire at switches, I don't know how much of the equipment they have use pans other than the South Shore and the IC cars, and their not running them for the voltage issues and adaptable equipment for the lower voltage.

South Bend runs are usually 2 cars at least now mostly because of Safety issues and the ridership is up so 4 car trains aren't uncommon from SB now. I think in the past drop-adds had also been done at Gary and some trains terminated at Gary. Pretty much reflected the traffic patterns then.

I've never heard "reasons" why SB street running stopped, perhaps it was the runaway accident the motivation?

dinwitty wrote:I've never heard "reasons" why SB street running stopped, perhaps it was the runaway accident the motivation?

Money.

The South Bend street running was discontinued back in 1970 ... the C&O ran the system at the time and made their money off freight service. Passenger service was a money loser and they applied to shut down passenger service completely in 1970 and again in 1976. Fortunately the ICC said no to each shutdown request and in 1977 the State of Indiana stepped in and helped save the railroad. (The State of Illinois and the federal government have helped too.)

Street running is a tough proposition from a number of angles.

It's hard to maintain.
It's slow.
It's not safe.

And while it's interesting, I can think of far more fun things to do on a train ride than crawl down a street. I can do that all day in my car if I want.

Tadman wrote:Street running is a tough proposition from a number of angles.

It's hard to maintain.
It's slow.
It's not safe.

And while it's interesting, I can think of far more fun things to do on a train ride than crawl down a street. I can do that all day in my car if I want.

street running is a reflection of the street car era. North Shore moved off the Shore line to the Skokie Swift, but still had a fair amount of street running, especially in Milwaukee. Now the SS is wanting to do a shift. Sounds familiar.

Drive it in your car...heh, at the start there were barely any cars, it was street cars or it was horse and buggy or you walked. Why it was the "Trend" to take the trolley, as it was ahead of the technology vs cars. Oh well, look whats happenned.