This trip was taken on June 11, 2016
Last Saturday, not quite feeling a trip into Chicago yet, considering the South Shore Line is having an embargo on brining bicycles onboard due to the Chicago Blues Festival, I decided to go for an afternoon adventure to the Indiana Dunes for a walk and a swim on a very hot day.
Since bus service to the South Bend Airport, where the South Shore Line stops is terrible (hourly on Saturday last bus at 5:00pm) riding my week-old bicycle was the obvious choice and I have to simply hope it wouldn’t get stolen. There is a clear bike rack built by the entrance to the train platform I noticed a few I leave a little later than I mean too for the just under a half-hour, 5 mile ride across downtown South Bend and out to the airport. I get there at 12:59 and confirm with a conductor that I have plenty of time to lock my bike up well before the train.
I then headed inside and purchase a ticket to Beverly Shores, intermediate tickets on the South Shore Line aren’t cheap. Railfare feels steep at $8.00 when a ticket all the way to Downtown Chicago is only $13.00. The ticket office is open, South Bend has more weekend ridership than weekday ridership so the ticket window is open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays only.
I get on the train, only the rear 3 cars platform at South Bend, but luckily most of the train is open. We leave on tie at 1:05 ET moving very, very slowly down the industrial spur that was converted to daily use in 1992 so the South Shore Line could serve the airport instead of the Bendix Station still used by Amtrak. Soon the conductor comes, He’s giving everyone the simplest white seat checks that he punches. I get BV written on mine.
I enjoy the ride, reading mostly, (I promise I will do a comprehensive triplog route description on a ride with my laptop out the whole time on a future trip). We soon leave South Bend behind and are in fields, making a brief stop in Hudson Lake, where I finally enter Central Time for the first time in South Bend traveling my ground (I flew from South Bend to Chicago a few weeks ago).
It’s a longish ride until we come to a stop by the South Shore Line train yard and then enter Michigan City Carroll Street. This is one of the longest commuter rail stops I’ve experienced in a while since the train is switching crews while in service. There is even a PA announcement about someone doing something with a handbreak. I am asked at least four times by the new crew about my BV seat check to confirm that I am going to Beverly Shores. Intermediate travel clearly isn’t all that common. Eventually we make our way on the long, slow, but super cool street running segment through downtown Michigan City including 11th Street where passengers board directly in the middle of the street.
We leave Michigan City behind and it’s a short trip through some trees along a transmission highway where I notice a path.
I arrive at Beverly Shores–(38 Photos) at the nearly same time on the clock, 1:08 that I left South Bend. I’ve changed time zones on this trip finally entering Central Time. I get off as someone gets on being seen off by a guy that I can’t not notice is in his swimsuit and shirtless on this very warm day, a swim is the primary reason I’ve come to Beverly Shores on a 90 degree day. In front of a wonderful and historic depot that eaks the original days when Interurban Railroads were king.
I explore the depot area, including visiting the small art gallery which is open. They don’t have any local tourism brochures about the area, although the women inside does remark that she should visit the National Park Service visitors center and get some.
I get some pictures and then decide to start my walk. I see there’s a train coming in half an hour and to force myself to make a loop walk down the a bike trail that is more of an overgrown dirt road. I’m happy to know now just how rough this trail is before bringing my bike here. I was hoping to take my bike on the train today but the Chicago Blues festival has resulted in a bicycle embargo and ban this weekend. I’m lucky though; if I had moved to South Bend last summer I couldn’t bring my bike into Chicago at all. This is the first summer the South Shore Line has allowed bicycles at all, the bikes on board program is still in a prototype phase.
I see a train go by across the filed but after it passes I realize my camera is in the wrong setting.
Eventually I make a turn where there was once a flag stop for hikers until 1994 (no evidence is left) on Kemil Road. I head towards the shore and soon approach the beach. The parking lots seem a bit crowded.
I have a good beach walk and wonderful dip in Lake Michigan that is exactly what’s needed on a hot day. I walk down the beach for a while before heading back to Lake Front Drive to look at the five historic Century of Progress prototype Houses that were moved here from the Century of Progress World’s Fare Exposition in 1933.
The South Shore Line isn’t that frequent to South Bend (just 5 trains per day).
Residents also use golf carts to get around, with permits and special golf cart parking lot in the residents only lot. The public lots were full and as I was walking into one parking lot (that was full) to use the restrooms, 3 motorists asked me if I was leaving. I responded I’m here without a vehicle.
I found the small community park with a strange memorial to the Lituanica
I realize I have more time and go for a walk on the Great Marsh trail, hearing plenty of Shorebirds. 
I then headed back to the Beverly Shores train station, seeing a Chicago-bound train stopping and then leaving the station off in the distance.
I went over the grade crossing to a nearby shop for ice cream and then waited for my train, getting most of my photo essay, now with my settings set properly (I’m terrible about remembering to look but like to be in more control than just keeping everything on auto. Sometimes it gets me into trouble).
Beverly Shores is a flagstop with a waiting room. A bit strange if you ask me, I guess it’s based on ridership numbers, not amenities. I try and get the strobe light to work pushing the button but fail. I have a feeling it’s a nighttime only thing.
The 6:13 train arrives a few minutes late for what’s on the clock a nearly two hour ride back to South Bend. I flash the eTicket I’m using on this trip, the graphics with the usual animations to show authenticity look a bit comic.
The ride is largely uneventful except for being full of families and children, an eightish year old is very confused about the time change, ahead of me. At Carroll Street, the stop is faster, there isn’t a crew change again. The crew comes through the cars double-checking there isn’t anyone for Hudson Lake and we go through the flag stop full speed. We arrive in South Bend on time at 8:14 and I realize that on weekends the two deadhead trips aren’t in revenue service back to the Carroll Street yard (on weekdays they are). There is a later train to Chicago out of South Bend, but it isn’t for a few hours, after the next train arrives.
We get to the South Bend Airport and get few photos (will make a page for the station soon), and as I’m slowly unlocking my bike the train leaves to deadhead back to the yard for the night at Carroll Avenue.
I have a nice (still in the long days of summer light) bike ride back to my new South Bend home.