PORTER — Construction on the South Shore Line's Double Track NWI project is more than one-third done and early work on the West Lake Corridor project has construction nearing the 10% mark, railroad officials told the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District board of trustees on Monday.
Work on the Double Track rail system in Michigan City is expected to wrap up by Thanksgiving, while West Lake work includes earthwork, utility relocations and various supporting infrastructure work for the new Hammond-to-Dyer line.
"It's significant, the amount of investment that's coming out of the ground on both projects," NICTD President Michael Noland said. "Both projects remain on track to finish up and open up on time."
Double Track is scheduled for completion in spring 2024, and West Lake in spring 2025.
In addition to Michigan City, work continues on Double Track along the line to Gary's Miller Station, where one new parking lot is complete and work on a new station is underway. West Lake work is most intense in Hammond and has included infrastructure work in Munster around the Little Calumet River and southward.
The railroad is also rehabilitating 32 rail cars to be used on the West Lake line. That work is about a quarter complete.
The NICTD board also made several equipment purchases Monday. The railroad will spend about $4.6 million on 20 auxiliary power supply units for its double-decker rail cars. The APS units, from Vapor Stone Rail Systems of Platteville, New York, will replace original units and match those that are on the 26 cars the South Shore will lease from the Illinois-based Metra commuter railroad.
NICTD is buying 60 air dryer units for rail-car braking systems from Wabtec Corp. of Spartanburg, South Carolina, for $440,000.
The railroad is paying the firm Train Management Computers about $1.5 million to upgrade the CPUs used in rail cars for the Positive Train Control safety system.
Noland also reported that the railroad hopes to have chosen an engineer next month to do engineering and environmental work for a move of the South Bend International Airport station from the east side of the airport terminal to the west side.
The move would significantly shorten the route into the station, eliminating 20 at-grade road crossings and reducing travel time for South Bend passengers.
Once preliminary engineering work is completed, NICTD would begin seeking funding, with the notion that recent ramping-up of federally available money will be available for the long-considered project.
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