INSULL’S INTERURBAN LEGACY: 2
Today on the SOUTH SHORE
BY JOHN MEANS AND RYAN KERTIS/PHOTOS AS NOTED
A GENERATION AGO, RAILFANS KNEW THE Chicago, South Shore & South Bend as “the Midwest’s last interurban,” with vintage heavyweight electric cars rolling down jointed rail through indus- trial areas on Indiana’s lake shore. Even as noted historian and author William D. Middleton proclaimed “the American interurban era was truly over” with the shutdown of neighbor Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee in January 1963, the South Shore solid- ered on. Surviving a number of rever- sals of fortune through the years, to- day’s South Shore operation is thriving, yet still retains much of its original charm.
In September 1903, the first Chicago
& Indiana Air Line Railway streetcars connected East Chicago to Indiana Harbor. The following year, the rail- road was renamed the Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend Railway. In 1906, the railroad embarked on an aggressive program to build an electric railroad from South Bend, Indiana, all the way to Chicago. An unusual 6600-volt a.c.
system was chosen to energize the line. By 1908, ten trains a day were operat- ing between South Bend and Ham- mond. In 1912 the Kensington & East- ern Railway was completed to allow through service over the Illinois Cen- tral to Chicago. Initially, IC steam loco- motives were used to tow CLS&SB coaches over the connection to Chicago. Carload freight service began in 1916, further improving the fortunes of the fledgling electric railway.
Into the 1920s, the South Shore be- gan a period of rapid decline. The rail- road had accumulated a significant debt by 1924, leading to a bank foreclo- sure on the property, and what seemed like the end of the line.
The Insull Era
Samuel Insull was a powerful cap- tain of industry who came up through the ranks of Thomas Edison’s empire in the late 19th century. Insull had com- bined his holdings in Chicago’s Com- monwealth Edison and the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIP-
SCO) into one of the most powerful util- ities
in the Midwest. When the
CLS&SB entered receivership in 1925, Insull purchased the railroad at fore- closure and reorganized it as the Chica- go, South Shore & South Bend Rail- road. The South Shore became part of a portfolio of electric interurbans that al- so included control of the North Shore as well as the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin. Under Insull’s management, the South Shore was transformed almost overnight. The original streetcar line from East Chicago to Indiana Harbor was abandoned. The overhead wire was converted from 6600 volts a.c. to 1500 volts d.c. to allow trains to operate di- rectly onto the connecting Illinois Cen- tral (which was electrified in 1926). Track gangs rebuilt the line to “steam road” standards with heavy rail and deep ballast. New steel heavyweight electric coaches were ordered to replace the original wooden cars. The results were immediate, as both freight and passenger revenues climbed to meet ex- penses for the first time ever. Thanks
OPPOSITE: South Shore Line train 107 is running wrong-main and about to pound the Indiana Harbor Belt diamond at State Line on November 28, 2012. Lead car No. 47 is part of the second order of electric m.u. cars built by Nippon-Sharyo in 1992. LOU GERARD PHOTO
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