Robert Pence

Following up on KJP's comment, the street running is all single track. There are storage tracks and siding at Carroll Avenue on the east side of Michigan City, and on the west side there's a passing siding. About the only time on-time trains will meet at Michigan City outside Carroll Avenue is on weekends and holidays, when trains run every two hours all day in each direction. Then, the eastbound train waits on the siding west of Michigan City until the westbound clears. I think that's also where the line diverges for the coal trains headed to the NIPSCO power plant. I haven't seen a before/after track map comparison, but in the past few years there's been extensive track construction and improvement and resignaling between Gary and Dune Park. They've eliminated the infamous gantlet track on the bridge at Gary, scene of the worst wreck in the South Shore's history in the early 1990s, by adding a second span, and lengthened many sidings. I think they may have even laid track bridging the gap between some sidings, creating lengthy stretches of what probably qualifies as double track. After departing Hegewisch westbound, there aren't many grade crossings, if any at all. Trains enter the elevated Metra Electric (Illinois Central) track at Kensington (Pullman)(115th Street) and make the first of several stops in Metra territory. From Kensington on, it's all grade-separated and impeccably maintained welded rail. The South Shore trains sometimes will reach about 60mph there, and it's smooth as silk. On Metra's track they can only discharge passengers inbound and pick up passengers outbound. Other stops are: 63rd (flag); 55-56-57th Streets; McCormick Place (23rd) (weekends and auto show only); Roosevelt (12th); and Van Buren. All trains terminate at Randolph (Millennium). Probably a good thing, because that's where the track ends. South Shore is traditionally pretty good at keeping schedules, although 5 - 15 minute delays haven't been uncommon. The last few times I've ridden, though, they've been precisely on the money at every stop from beginning to end. The punctuality Nazi in me worships that kind of performance! If you follow this link to my South Shore web page, you'll find a link the the South Shore's web site and other info.

South Shore Freight is a separate business entity from the South Shore commuter operations, and I believe South Shore Freight actually owns the real estate. The commuter trains are run by NICTD (Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District). South Shore Freight switches several steel mills along the line and runs some lengthy freight trains west of Michigan City. Most freight traffic runs late at night outside the passenger schedules, and although I've seen the trains from the window of a motel where I used to stay, I've never gotten out to photograph at those hours. Nominally the trains run at 10mph on the street in Michigan City, but it depends on conditions. When there's little traffic, like late night, they tend to pick up the pace a little. The traffic signals are probably synchronized with the railroad's signaling system; I've never seen a train that had to stop for a red light at a cross street. On my return from Chicago on Monday evening, my train had an encounter with an auto at the west end of street-running, where the tracks diverge from the street. There's a crossing signal along the street and a bar painted on the pavement in advance of the point where the tracks diverge, with a sign admonishing drivers to "Stop Here When Light is Flashing". Some clown didn't "stop here" but pulled up a few feet beyond the bar. He didn't get hit, but the clearance was extremely close and the operator stopped the train when the first train car had just about passed the auto. I could get a sort of angled view of what was going on. The car was at such an angle that he couldn't back up without backing into the train, and his front wheels were near the curb. The conductor climbed down and talked to the driver, who apparently didn't accede to his request. Next, both the operator and conductor approached the auto, and the driver pulled forward over the curb. The train proceeded, and the last I saw, the auto was sitting with its front wheels deeply stuck in mud on the park strip.

A few photos of South Shore street running in Michigan City, Indiana. These were taken late on a Sunday afternoon, but downtown Michigan City isn't very lively any time. The two miles through downtown Michigan City are all that remain of street running on the South Shore Line. The railroad would very much like to get rid of the street running, as these two miles are the most expensive to maintain on the entire system. They're studying the possibility of relocating adjacent to the CSX line farther south, eliminating many street crossings and providing many more parking spaces. You can see all my South Shore photos, including a few going back to the seventies, here. The old station has been closed for a long time. I was in it in the seventies when it was still in use, and it was an attractive station. The current "station". Most Michigan City passengers board at Carroll Avenue, on the east side of town. The maintenance shops and storage tracks are at Carroll Avenue.

That ladder truck is a beast! Solid rubber tires, two-wheel mechanical brakes -- it took brute strength, a lot of it, just to drive a machine like that.

Interesting photos, and an area I have to visit sometime. Some of my ancestral roots are in Hocking County. There's something incongruous about the photos of Glouster in sunshine, under blue skies. I think dull, flat lighting and a gray, overcast sky would have been a better fit for the character of the town. :wink:

Wonderful city tour! You guys covered a lot of mileage, and you documented it beautifully.

Wonderful photos!

Wow! Looks like one of those towns that might have been moderately prosperous eighty years ago and now only has a few old people with old family money, but not much else. Some of those buildings look like they're pre-Civil War. I looked it up on the map, expecting to find it near the Ohio River in the southeastern part of the state, and was surprised that it's not far from Dayton. I wonder if it had its good times during the oil-and-gas boom era.

Beautiful. Although it's been a long time, I remember that some of those escalators to the Metro stations were amazing. There was one -- might it have been Foggy Bottom? -- that was like a journey to the center of the earth. I don't know how deep the station was, but I remember that my friend - Big Sissy - had hold onto me and ride with his eyes closed. And Daniel Burnham's Union Station is glorious; it's what a station in the nation's capital ought to be, and the restoration was a stunning transformation from the leaky-roofed dump it had deteriorated into.

The Union County Courthouse was built in 1890-1891, and shortly after completion the 100-foot tower collapsed. There were no reported injuries, but reconstruction took almost nine months. When I visited Liberty in 2006, the courthouse was undergoing major restoration and was closed to the public. Of the eight Indiana courthouses designed by Indianapolis architect George W. Bunting, only this one and the Wells County Courthouse (1962 photo) in Bluffton were built in the Romanesque style. This building looks in rough shape. It would make a striking restoration, and it's right across the street from the courthouse. It would make a prestigious law office.

This sort of thing makes me very happy. The building on the left looks like it could be interesting restored, too.

I've never been to Warren. It looks pretty interesting, and the courthouse is grand. When I saw "sausage festival" I immediately flashed back to some past threads in Urbanbar (or SSP's Skybar) :wink:

Ditto. I was even punched once (inside the West Side Market) by a woman who thought I had taken her picture. I hadn't. That was a long time ago. Then there are the ones, usually bums, who think I have to pay them if they're in my photograph. Occasionally I'll get one who keeps trying to get in my shot until I have to give up on that shot until after they've gone away. Or maybe they think I'll pay them to go away. I haven't run into many of them lately, but a few years back they seemed to be everywhere in Chicago. Andrew, this is really nice work. You're capturing both the Cleveland icons and the hidden details, and the quality is excellent.

Good shots! Did you know that the Veterans' Memorial Bridge (Detroit-Superior Viaduct) has a lower deck that used to carry streetcars across the river from the bridge's opening in 1917 until the demise of the streetcar system in 1954? The lower deck and subway approaches will be open to the public for self-guided tours on Saturday of Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends; you can get the details here.

Wochele and Hodges both made their presentations, and Wochele showed his high-speed video, the previous evening (Mar 26) before an audience that I'd guess was about 125-150 people in the Cinema Center auditorium at Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne. Wochele is an articulate, dynamic and persuasive speaker, and the video on a theater screen at full size and full resolution is pretty stunning. His statement that high-speed rail is in the midwest's future, but will probably have to happen somewhere else first, indicates that he's been briefed on the midwestern mindset. Indiana needs to stop being a stumbling block. It stands in the way of other states' efforts to build a system that connects with Chicago, and for as long as I can remember attempts at grass-roots organizing in this state have fallen flat after a short time.

Beautiful - Charm and Elegance

Very nice stuff! There are some excellent compositions in there, and some shots that are definitely off the beaten path.

Sounds like a talented, interesting person. I really like his paintings.

I don't know how property taxes work in Ohio, but I suspect the system is similar to Indiana's; the bulk of the assessment lies on improvements, mainly structures, with about 20 - 25 percent lying on land. Remove the structures, and the assessment drops sharply. If the hospital is a non-profit entity under the tax codes, as soon as they acquired those properties all the property tax revenues were lost to the city. The increased runoff from paved surface lots will go into the storm sewers, often contaminated with oil and other automotive fluids, placing additonal burden on the city's infrastructure -infrastructure that is maintained with property tax revenue - and creating problems for the city under federal and/or state clean-water regulations that the city will have to spend money to address. Increased parking draws increased automobile traffic, placing additonal burdens on tax-supported infrastructure and requiring additional expenditure on traffic-control systems and public safety. Even if the hospital pays property tax, the assesment for a given parcel of land is usually much less when used for parking lots than when the use is residential or commercial. I realize that Springfield is in a desperate place economically. It looks like they're faced with a no-win situation.

"Urban Renewal"? :-o The seventies were thirty years ago. Somebody please buy these folks a new calendar!

I don't know what to say, but that's never stopped me before. I'll say something anyway. As I looked at these, my imagination started superimposing images of what used to be. Then the real pictures started coming through again, and I had to stop, pour a drink, and cry a little while. At least it doesn't have a "wide-ass main street." :wink:

I cannot watch this video as my work does not allow it because of bandwidth issues. If it is what I think it is, and I think it is, then you have to realize that there was a jet flying along side the train getting video coverage of it. The loud noise you hear is probably that of the jet flying over the fixed location camera. I certainly hope that trains aren't that loud, if they are, we have one heck of a fight to put up to get something like this built. This evening I saw the video at full resolution on a theatre screen, with good sound. It's pretty amazing. You're right about the sound coming from the jet plane.

I like it. Imposing courthouse, but somebody sure f-ed up the windows. The middle building in this block is kind of unusual, especially in a small farm town. I like it.

Cardinal (#50) departs Cincinnati 3:29a.m.Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, arrives Washington, D.C. at 5:55p.m. Cardinal (#51) departs Washington, D.C. 11:10a.m. Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, arrives Cincinnati 1:03a.m. You'd really have to want to ride a train to take that trip.

^ Makes me wanna cry! This evening the Indiana High Speed Rail Association is holding a public rally in Fort Wayne at Andorfer Commons on the Indiana Tech Campus, from 5 - 7 p.m. I have such a busy social calendar, but I'm going to try to squeeze some time out of my schedule to stop in for a little while.