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Memories of the South Shore
DVD
The South Shore’s Garden City Limited slinks down the street-running tracks in East Chicago sometime in 1929. Artist Mitch Markovitz captured this bygone scene of the South Shore’s parlor and dining car service (and the South Shore tracks would be rerouted off the streets of East Chicago in 1956). Read how the artist’s love of railroading connected his life to the South Shore Line.
530-527-0141
MANY ARE FAMILIAR with the vibrant illus- trations and artwork of Mitch Markovitz, es- pecially if you share a particular interest in the South Shore Line. Over the years, Mitch has produced a number of special posters and timetable illustrations, all with a vin- tage style and a nod to the century of service the South Shore has provided. Since this is- sue focuses on two midwestern traction clas- sics, I asked Mitch to explain his connection to the South Shore that served as the inspira- tion for his popular work. — O.M.V.
I WAS SPEAKING WITH Otto Vondrak the other day and the subject of how I came to the South Shore Line came up. To me there was no other destination as I had planned on it since I was three years old.
I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. I
www.SteamTrainVideos.com
was born in 1950. The place was all laced up with railroads. Amongst them was the main line and South Chicago branch of the Illinois Central Railroad. My father, a commercial illustrator, had the IC as a client. My uncle’s best friend was a locomotive engineman on the IC. In the evening, mom would drive me to the Grand Crossing depot to pick up Pop from the IC. Trains were everywhere at Grand Crossing. Standing on the IC plat- form I would watch the trains go by on the Pennsylvania and New York Central, cross- ing over the IC main line. Over in the corner, trains of the Nickel Plate curved down and over from the NYC main over the IC to their own railroad. On the IC electric there’d be the passing of the bright gold-orange cars of
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RAILFAN.COM
the South Shore Line. The “Orange IC Train,” I called it. Yes, the “IC.” The every 20 minutes, a four
car, not-so-clean electric train to downtown. With rattan seats of questionable repair they made quite the show down 71st Street on the South Side of Chicago. As we moved along the IC main line we would pass an “Or- ange IC Train.” Faster than our train, with what looked to be nicer seats, they’d shoot by us at high speed. From the window of my aunt and uncle’s 8th story bathroom in Hyde Park I would wait for the orange trains. As good South Siders we spent summer time in Northwest Indiana — sometimes the Dunes, sometimes in Michigan City. Every trip out there would certainly include the sight of the Orange IC. I remember seeing a South Shore Line train on Chicago Street in East Chicago, Ind. Not on a ballasted and controlled median strip, but right on the ce- ment (pronounced “SEE-ment” out this way in Indiana.) Then we would see them flash- ing through the woods along Highway 12, and then onto the street again in Michigan City. Who could resist this?
I remember my very first trip on the South Shore. It was the day after a fabulous late spring blizzard that had forced my par- ents to leave their car in Gary while visiting my cousins. Mom, my Uncle Morton, and my cousin Harold waited on the 63rd Street Woodlawn IC platform for our train. In it came and I couldn’t wait. Folks going only as far as Gary were directed to the cars behind the first two coaches. We entered into a car
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