SOUTH SHORE LINE RR HISTORY

TIMELINE

The Chicago, South Shore, and South Bend Railroad was one of America’s earliest electric interurban railroads and has endured for well over a hundred years connecting Chicago with a string of cities and towns across Northern Indiana.

The earliest predecessors of the South Shore Line were among the earliest attempts to construct an electric interurban railroad from Toledo, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois. From its earliest beginning over 120 years ago, the western leg of the South Shore Line’s founders’ vision has endured

Today, the South Shore Line continues to operate for 90 miles from Chicago through the strength of the industrial heartland, the beauty of the Indiana dunescape, and across the rugged glacial moraine country to South Bend, Indiana. The South Shore Line Museum collection of large artifacts shall focus primarily on the period from the origins of the South Shore Line in 1900 until the end of the Insull-era in 1932. Our storytelling shall not end in 1932 though, but will cover the entire South Shore Line story up to and including the present.

South Shore Line Museum Project - South Shore Line route map

Interurban electric railways were an idea ahead of their time. In the early 20th Century, America’s urban centers were growing at breakneck speed. One of the new electrical technologies that ordinary Americans benefited from was a network of fast, frequent, clean, electrically powered trains. Building electric railways to interconnect cities with small towns improved access, accelerating the growth of business and commerce.

In effect, the growth of electric interurban railroads both piloted and presaged a series of dramatic shifts in American’s expectations as to mobility, access, and economic development.

Interurbans were a disruptive technology. But they were quickly overtaken by an even more radical and disruptive technology, and one that even better suited the American character: The Automobile.

SOUTH SHORE LINE: ORIGINS & HISTORY

The Chicago, South Shore, and South Bend Railroad was one of America’s earliest electric interurban railroads and has endured for well over a hundred years connecting Chicago with a string of cities and towns across Northern Indiana.

Corruption, Racism & World Leadership:
The Men of the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad

This book is dedicated to Robert Winkler for doing more to save the South Shore Line than he will ever understand, and to Lisa Gardner Harris for understanding the value of preserving the fine woodwork that rode the railroads.

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

HERITAGE RESOURCES

The assets of the South Shore Line Museum Project represent 45 years of collecting the rolling stock, physical plant, and corporate ephemera of the South Shore Line. Here is just part of this feast of transportation history.

Collected Rolling Stock and Physical Plant Assets

  • Twelve railcars (one wood combination coach-baggage car; six steel coach cars; one dining car; one parlor-observation-buffet car; one Birney streetcar; one electric locomotive; one service car)
  • 10,000 sq ft of warehouse space stocked from floor to ceiling with capital spare parts
  • Two miles of track materials including seventeen turnouts
  • Ten miles of overhead trolley wire hardware
  • The Penn-Wabash bridge (174’ Pratt pin-connected truss)
  • Ten miles of three-color light block signals

The collected rolling stock is representative of the operations of the South Shore Line and its predecessor, The Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railway (South Shore Lines) in the period 1908 through 1932. The only remaining rail car from the opening of the railway in 1908 survived the coming of the Model T Ford, two world wars, the Great Depression, and the unrest of the 1960s. It is currently in a restoration shop in Illinois.

Collected Archival Assets

  • 82 art posters from the Insull Group companies
  • Passengers Use Light at Night – documentary motion picture aired on PBS
  • 10,000+ images of Insull Group railways
  • 500+ electric railway brochures & timetables
  • 1,500+ electric railway annual reports
  • 100 Full-Year Bound Volumes of Industry Journals (Electric Railway Journal; Street Railway Journal; Electric Traction Weekly)
  • Company AFEs
  • Company track maps & property records
  • Company equipment ledger books
  • 1,000+ linen drawings and blueprints of rail car equipment and facilities
  • Library of 500+ books

PRESERVATION, CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION

Railroads in general and the South Shore Line Railroad in particular, do not create tangible goods. They move people and things from one place to another—one of the most fleeting and ephemeral activities known to man. Transportation cannot be banked, stored, or recycled.

It is, however, essential to modern life and progress, and the comfort and prosperity that has defined America for the last two centuries.

It is vital, alive, and engaging. The South Shore Line transported people to different places through changing times. (over the course of century) The South Shore Line Museum likewise strives to transport people to different places, times, and realities. It invites them to experience the journey in through a variety of means and in whatever ways they find most rewarding and meaningful. Its primary objective is to create new memories, rekindle old ones, make connections, and to provide opportunities to engage (with) the South Shore Line in ways that might prove most enlightening and useful.

It does so using original South Shore Line equipment, authentic railroad experiences and environments in addition to newer technologies like virtual reality, simulation and every tool available to contemporary museum practice.

Our vision is to use the South Shore Line railroad as a portal for the exploration of history, technology, culture, and the evolution of life in Northwest Indiana.

Tap/click and drag the arrow handles left or right to reveal paired images below.

Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend Railway car #73

SSLMP-site-restoration-before-after-CLS-Roster-73-before-600x400SSLMP-site-restoration-before-after-CLS-Roster-73-after-600x400

(L) Shadyside wreck, 19 June 1909. Car #73 in the foreground
(R) Car #73 in the restoration shop near Murphysboro, Illinois, 2021

Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #3

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(L) Brand new car #3 at Pullman Car & Manufacturing, 13 July 1926
(R) Main passenger compartment, car #3, 13 July 1926

Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #4

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(L) Car #4 at Hammond, July 1973
(R) Main passenger compartment, car #4, circa 1950

Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #5

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(L) Car #5 at Michigan City, 19 September 1934
(R) Main passenger compartment, car #5, 1982

Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #7

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(L) Car #7 at Michigan City, August 1978 — Car #7 is sitting 100’ south of where this image was taken
(R) Main passenger compartment, car #7, August 1967

Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #31

SSLMP - Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #31SSLMP - Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #31

(L) Car #31 at Gary, 31 August 1948
(R) Main passenger compartment, car #31, circa 1953

Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #37

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(L) Car #37 at Tremont, circa 1948
(R) Main passenger compartment, car #37, 1937

Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad Car #203

SSLMP - Car 203 - ExteriorSSLMP - Car 203 - Interior

(L) Car #203 at South Bend, IN, 19 October 1935
(R) Main passenger compartment, Car #203, 1935

Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad car #351

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(L) Car #351 at Randolph St., Chicago, December 1931
(R) Parlor section, brand new car #351, January 1927

Chicago Rapid Transit Company locomotive #S-104

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(L) Locomotive #S-104 at Davis St., Evanston
(R) Locomotive #S-104 at Toledo Edison Acme Plant, 1996

Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad line car #606

SSLMP - Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad line car #606SSLMP - Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad line car #606

(L) Tower car #606 at Highwood, 10 May 1923
(R) Interior of tower car #606, 1972

Colorado and Southern Railway dining car #706

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(L) Borrowed dining car at Michigan City, Autumn 1929
(R) Interior of similar Pullman dining car of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy

Lafayette Street Railway Birney streetcar

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(L) Birney streetcar #26 at Third & Main, Lafayette, August 1939
(R) Interior of typical Birney streetcar, 1920