Trains now running along Monon Corridor; South Shore Line dedicates route between severe storms

A tornado warning postponed Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting for the South Shore Line’s new Monon Corridor route, but it didn’t prevent it.

“This is the largest infrastructure investment since the Borman Expressway, and it was done in a collaborative effort,” said U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Highland.

“We’re standing at the Hammond Gateway Station, a true front door to our city,” Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said.

“Our downtown is on the rise, and this station will accelerate that growth even further,” he said.

The city will soon break ground on a new train station downtown, adding a third station to the city, which already has a station at 173rd Street in South Hammond, as well as the Hammond Gateway Station.

Mike Noland, president emeritus of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, noted the historic occasion came nearly 60 years after the last run of the Monon Railroad passenger trains on that route in 1967.

Noland, who retired earlier this month, credited visionaries Janet Moran, who was on the Hammond City Council, and U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, “who championed this project for three decades,” along with Noland’s predecessor, Jerry Hanas, who arranged for NICTD to buy the Monon right of way.

“This is a nearly $1.6 billion investment,” Noland said.

“This sends a signal to the private sector investments about Indiana’s willingness to invest in large public infrastructure projects,” he said. Not only that, “we will finish this project significantly under budget, millions of dollars under budget. It’s just the way we do things in Indiana.”

Noland hopes the millions saved in federal grant money will be diverted to further improvements along the Monon Corridor.

“Music to my ears when I hear something comes in under budget,” Gov. Mike Braun said.

Braun was officially Rider No. 1 on the inaugural route, Noland said.

The governor called northwest Indiana “the most understated part of our state.”

“Every time I come up, it’s a vitality here that we have nowhere else in the state,” he said.

“The ripple effect of this is supposed to be $5 billion over the next 20 years,” Braun said, bringing 6,000 jobs. “That is transformational.”

“Northwest Indiana has always had the workforce, the talent and the drive to achieve great things,” Mrvan said.

He noted the absence of his predecessor, Visclosky, who was a driving force for decades to get the historic commuter rail extension accomplished. “He didn’t do it for recognition,” Mrvan said, so it was symbolic that Visclosky wasn’t at the ribbon-cutting to receive accolades.

Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority President and CEO Sherri Ziller said the RDA committed to the project in February 2014. “Today has been a long time coming, especially for the RDA.

“Over the next 20 years, this investment in commuter rail will change the face of northwest Indiana,” she said, serving as a catalyst for developments similar to The Franklin, a $101 million mixed-use building attached to the 11th Street Station in Michigan City and The Banc, a residential building in downtown Hammond that formerly housed Calumet Bank.

“We’re seeing the reversal of the long-declining census numbers in northwest Indiana,” Ziller said.

The RDA projected the $1.6 billion West Lake Corridor and Double Track NWI projects would have a $2.7 billion return on investment over 20 years. “We are already seeing $800 million to $900 million toward that,” she said. “We are already seeing numbers we weren’t supposed to be seeing until 2030.”

“We won’t stop. In the future, we’ll build on this historic project,” she said.

“What a tremendous day for northwest Indiana,” said Lyndsay Quist, who serves as both Indiana Department of Transportation commissioner and chair of the NICTD board.

“This monumental project took decades of effort,” enhancing the quality of life in northwest Indiana with four new stations. “Every new grade crossing includes enhanced safety features,” plus quiet zones.

Connor Torossian, associate administrator for communications and congressional affairs for the Federal Transit Administration, called it a $945 million investment that spanned President Donald Trump’s first and second terms.

“We’re not just celebrating a rail line but rather inaugurating a lifeline,” Torossian said.

“Indiana has the advantage of open space for growth, and they can build smarter, faster and more reliably,” he said. “Let’s keep building, keep growing and put Indiana’s families and focus first.”

“It’s about connecting our hardworking Hoosiers for better jobs, better education,” U.S. Rep. Rudy Yakym said.

“Let us remember that this is Hoosier ingenuity in action,” he said. “Let’s keep building, let’s keep connecting and let’s continue to move the Hoosier state forward.”

“Today is about grit and bipartisanship,” Mrvan said.

“We’re northwest Indiana. It’s underbudget because our trademen and women were able to do that job with safety and precision,” Mrvan said.

“We understand the value of major projects and sports teams,” he said.

“This project started that momentum,” McDermott said. “We’re ready to grow, we’re ready to compete, we’re ready to win.”

Braun said he was asked about Hammond’s Chicago Bears stadium proposal at his Whiting Refinery visit Tuesday morning before arriving at the Hammond Gateway Station to more questions about the Bears.

“Sometimes, the moon, the sun, the stars line up,” he said.

“I promise you, governor, when you come up for the Bears announcement, we’ll have a lot better weather,” McDermott said.

The new route will have 29 trains a day, five going to Chicago in the morning and five returning in the afternoon, with one train going the opposite direction. The remainder of the trains will be shuttles to take passengers to the Lakeshore Corridor, the traditional east-west route.

“We’re really spending a lot of time making sure our passengers know what’s coming,” Director of Marketing and Capital Improvements Nicole Barker told the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation Board Monday. That includes producing videos with topics like how to transfer between trains.

President and General Manager David Dech said customer service employees were stationed at the Hammond Gateway platform for the first day of service Tuesday, to help riders get to the right place.

“That’s going to be a learning curve for all of us,” Dech told the NICTD board.

“There’s going to be bumps, and there’s going to be things people don’t like,” he said, so he will listen to customers and crews to see what needs to change.

“We need to let this stew for a little while,” Dech said, and make sure it’s running the way it’s supposed to, before making schedule changes as soon as a month or so.

He’s eager to see how many riders the new Monon Corridor will have.

Joe Hegyes lives near the Hammond Gateway Station but grew up in South Hammond, “right across the street from the Monon roundhouse, where they used to work on the engines and everything. It was really cool.”

“You couldn’t get across 173rd around 6 o’clock because they started warming up the trains and during the day, they would switch them and the whole neighborhood would rock. They called it humping the trains. It was cool.”

“We had a blast going in there and bugging the workers, going in the roundhouse and watch them working on the locomotives and stuff, watching them using the turntable to get them into the different gates of the roundhouse,” Hegyes said.

“It was really sad when they tore it down. They took the turntable out and they tore the roundhouse down and filled in the hole where the turntable was,” he said. “It was sad when it left, because that was our hangout growing up in the 1960s.”

Hegyes rode the first run on the Monon Corridor, seeing rail service return. Riders cheered and applauded when the first train left the station.

“This is a blast. I like this because we only live a mile away. Our bucket list is to ride it all the way to South Bend and then come back,” he said.

He took pictures during the construction of the new rail line.

Joe Harsbarger, of Chicago, also rode the inaugural run.

“I think it’s really impressive that it’s happening in Indiana. It’s not a state that’s known for prioritizing public transportation,” he said.

Stormy Kara, a YouTuber who has been reviewing rail lines and train stations, mostly in the Chicago area, since about 2020, was surprised by how fast the train went. “It’s not going to be a slow crawl; it’s going to be a quick ride from here to Hammond.”
“I think it’s definitely a first good step” for the South Shore Line, Kara, of Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, said. “I think more rail service is always a good thing.”

Kara reviewed the new Dyer station. “It’s got all of your amenities. It’s got ticket machines, it’s got restrooms, which is great to see – those aren’t always a given – seating, it’s all canopy, which is great, especially for a day like today, because it’s raining. It’s a pretty solid station.”

Drew Beveridge, of Chicago, grew up riding transit. “I took it to school. It was a huge, integral part of my life.”

“It’s a joy to be speeding along on one of the first new-build electric railroads in a long time,” he said. “I go to Purdue. When are they going to extend this line to West Lafayette?”

The RDA’s new 20-year strategic plan calls for extending South Shore service south to Cedar Lake and east to Valparaiso.

“This isn’t the finish line. This is the starting line,” McDermott said.