South Bend is a

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing suc ...

South Bend, Indiana South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan), St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 United S ...

. It is served by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's ''

Lake Shore Limited The ''Lake Shore Limited'' is an overnight Amtrak intercity rail, intercity passenger train that runs between Chicago and either New York City or Boston via two Section (rail transport), sections east of Albany, New York, Albany. The train bega ...

'' between

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and ''

Capitol Limited The ''Capitol Limited'' is a daily Amtrak train between Washington, D.C., and Chicago, running via Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Service began in 1981 and was named after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's ''Capitol Limited'' which ended in 1971 u ...

'' between Chicago and

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

The station was built by the

Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad The Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railroad , also known as the South Shore Line, is a Class III freight railroad operating between Chicago, Illinois, and South Bend, Indiana. The railroad serves as a link between Class I railroads and loc ...

in 1970;

South Shore Line The South Shore Line is an electrically powered interurban commuter rail line operated by the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD) between Millennium Station in downtown Chicago and the South Bend International Airport in ...

trains continued to use it until 1992.

History

Until 1970, South Shore Line interurbans served downtown South Bend at LaSalle and Michigan, where there had been a stop since 1908. The city had long wanted to eliminate

street running A street running train is a train which runs on a track built on public streets. The rails are embedded in the roadway, and the train shares the street with other users, such as pedestrians, cars and cyclists, thus often being referred to as r ...

, while the South Shore was looking to reduce costs as passenger traffic declined. The South Shore embarked on a program to consolidate its operations in South Bend. This included constructing the current station building at Meade and Washington and selling the old downtown station building, which had opened in 1921. On August 7, 1969, South Bend mayor Lloyd M. Allen announced that the railroad would move its station. Allen claimed that for the past five years he had been working to persuade them to move the station. The station opened in 1970. When Amtrak took over intercity rail service in 1971, it moved intercity rail service in South Bend to this station, away from the larger

Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

. The South Shore Line moved its terminus to a new terminal at the

South Bend International Airport South Bend International Airport is a commercial and freight airport located three miles northwest of downtown South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States. It is the state's second busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic aft ...

in November 1992, although the track that used to terminate here was retained. In the 1990s, there was some discussion of moving Amtrak to the Union Station. Subsequently, there were plans to build a new Amtrak station component at South Bend Transpo's

South Street Station The South Street Station (formerly known as The Narragansett Electric Company Power Station or Narragansett Electric Lighting Company Power Station and rebranded in 2017 as South Street Landing) is an historic electrical power generation station ...

. Ultimately, this never materialized. In the late-2010s, returning the South Shore Line to this location was studied as one of several options for replacing the current South Shore Line station.

Notes

References

External links

*
South Bend Amtrak Station (USA Rail Guide -- Train Web)
Amtrak stations in Indiana Transportation in South Bend, Indiana Buildings and structures in South Bend, Indiana Former South Shore Line stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 1970 Railway stations in St. Joseph County, Indiana 1970 establishments in Indiana {{Indiana-railstation-stub