At this writing, it has been almost one month since Senior Editor Carolina Worrell reported on the opening of the NICTD’s new eight-mile branch of the South Shore line through Hammond, Ind. to a terminal of a sort on the border of Munster and Dyer. Now on a cold Chicago afternoon in what is normally the middle of Spring, I was in the Windy City to ride it. The schedule is unusual, to say the least. In theory, the span of service is almost equivalent to that on the main to Michigan City or South Bend Airport, both on weekdays and weekends. In practice, those trips are time-consuming, except for peak-period weekday commuting hours. Midday and evening trains, as well as all trains on weekends, require a transfer time of 14 minutes or longer (sometimes much longer) between the main and the branch at Hammond Gateway station, even though the platforms are parallel to each other but at different elevations. It appears that much of that transfer time is unnecessary and only serves to lengthen trip time. If the transfer station had been placed between Chicago and the junction, cross-platform transfers apparently would have been possible. Peak commuting service into Chicago in the morning and out in the late afternoon consists of five direct trains on the new line, with one reverse-peak train. Those trains also stop at Hegewisch (at the southeast corner of Chicago, and within the service area of Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses), but not at the…
