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South Shore Line drops historic Kensington stop
BTW, Michigan Central’s passenger trains, some with Hudson’s, also entered IC at Kensington.
I recall as a kid, when I would stand in the doorway of the first car (the old orange cars) and watch the tracks ahead , as the train would navigate the Kensington Interlock. The new cars don’t permit you to do that anymore, but I recall bothSouth Shore tracks went through the interlock then, with quite a maze of switches, crossings and double-slip switches, and I wondered how the engineer could find his way through that mess, which really wasn’t the case. The interlock was simplified years later with the SS tracks being single-tracked going into the interlock. Sounds like they have made it simpler yet.
In the mid 1960s, while attending the University of Notre Dame, I rode the South Shore back and forth to visit my friend at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.
On April 14, 1967, a South Shore single car train with broken air and hand brakes and no electrical power struck six automobiles on LaSalle Ave. (rails were in the middle of the street), and failed to stop at the last stop in South Bend, IN at the intersection of LaSalle and North Michigan. The car continued east on LaSalle and downhill into the South Bend Terminal on the shore of the St. Joseph River, where it struck and destroyed a pair of wheel stops attached to the rails, derailed at the track’s stub end and penetrated the wall of a brick building, coming to arrest.
The engineer jumped or fell from the car just short of the collision with the rail end wheel stops and suffered severe head injuries and a broken leg. A Notre Dame Army ROTC Cadet on board was credited with organizing the evacuation of the passengers and then administering first aid and comfort to the injured on board until rescue workers arrived.
Seven occupants of the automobiles and the engineer, conductor and eight passengers were injured.
The subsequent investigation determined that the car had struck a steel cable which broke off a drain cock on the air system. The air bled off slowly and did not activate the automatic braking system. The engineer did not notice the loss of air until he applied the air to slow from 70 mph for two curves approximately two miles west of the South Bend Terminal. He reversed the power and slowed the car to approximately 40 mph. The car entered two curves at excessive speed and the pantograph fouled the cantenary causing the pantograph to fall from the car, resulting in the car having no power. The engineer with the help of a passenger applied the hand brake which broke because of poor maintenance. The car continued for approximately two miles until it struck the building.
Exactly one week later, a si
Won’t be the same with South Shore trains not stopping at Kensington (or “Bumtown” as the old heads used to call it). As an IC suburban employee in the fifties and sixties I lived in Park Forest and would frequently ride the CSS&SB between 115th Street and Randolph Street to avoid the IC with all its intermediate stops. The CSS&SB crews would always honor our IC passes. And, if the schedule permitted, there was always the stop at Pesaventos tavern if you were going home. Ah me! What pleasant memories.
When I saw the construction activity at Kensington Station last year, I could tell that this appeared to be iminent the way that the tracks were arranged, unless NICTD opted to build a new platform at the station.