Dune Park is a

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

Westchester Township, Porter County, Indiana Westchester Township is one of twelve townships in Porter County, Indiana. It is included in the Calumet, Northwest Indiana, and Great Lakes regions. It is located on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, about southeast of Chicago. It stretche ...

, located north of the municipalities of Chesterton and

Porter Porter may refer to: Companies * Porter Airlines, Canadian airline based in Toronto * Porter Chemical Company, a defunct U.S. toy manufacturer of chemistry sets * Porter Motor Company, defunct U.S. car manufacturer * H.K. Porter, Inc., a locom ...

. It is used by

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

trains, and serves as the headquarters of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD), the umbrella agency that operates the South Shore Line. It is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 12 and Indiana State Road 49.

Usage

Dune Park is a comparatively new station, built in 1985 to serve as a regional commuter station and as NICTD's corporate headquarters. The station was designed to replace the South Shore's former nearby station at Tremont, Indiana, a location that was becoming depopulated with the expansion of the nearby Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (now

Indiana Dunes National Park Indiana Dunes National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in northwestern Indiana managed by the National Park Service. It was authorized by Congress in 1966 as the Indiana Dunes Na ...

). The Dune Park station was built with substantial parking space to consolidate local commuter service, and in 1994 the South Shore Line ceased to offer its traditional

flag stop In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a bus stop, stop or train station, station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or drop ...

service to Dune Acres and Kemil Road, several miles west and east of Dune Park respectively. Users of these low-volume stops were instructed to instead use the consolidated Dune Park station. "Dune Park" is so called because it the station is physically surrounded by land owned by the

. Major units of the National Park are accessible from the station on U.S. 12 and the

Calumet Trail The Calumet Trail is an east-west bicycle and multiuse recreational trail in the Calumet region of northwestern Indiana, United States. It runs roughly parallel to U.S. Route 12 and the right-of-way of the South Shore line, along the NIPSCO e ...

. The station is also adjacent to the

Indiana Dunes State Park Indiana Dunes State Park is an Indiana State Park located in Porter County, Indiana, United States, east of Chicago. The park is bounded by Lake Michigan to the northwest and is surrounded by as well as within the authorized boundaries of Indi ...

, which is accessible to the north via Indiana 49. ''Dune Park'' was also the name of a former section of the Indiana Dunes, between

Ogden Dunes, Indiana Ogden Dunes is a town in Portage Township, Porter County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan, within Indiana Dunes National Park and nearly surrounded by the city of Portage. The population was 1,168 as of the ...

and Dune Acres, that was physically leveled in the 1960s to create the

Port of Indiana Ports of Indiana-Burns Harbor is an active maritime port owned by the State of Indiana. The state legislature created the Indiana Port Commission in 1961 to research and act upon opening maritime ports on Indiana's Lake Michigan shoreline as well ...

steelmaking and industrial complex.

Renovations

As part of a larger project to double track the South Shore Line between Gary and Michigan City, some improvements took place at Dune Park between 2021 and 2024. Unlike several other stations on the line which saw major improvements, the improvements at Dune Park were relatively minor since the station already had two tracks and a high-level platform. The main improvement was repurposing the northern track, which prior to the renovation only existed as a siding and to allow freight trains to pass through the station without interference from the high-level platform. The improved station added a new low-level platform adjacent to the northern track while keeping the existing high-level platform adjacent to the southern track, but also added

gauntlet track Gauntlet track or interlaced track, also gantlet track () is an arrangement in which Rail tracks, railway tracks run parallel on a single track bed and are interlaced (i.e., overlapped) in such a way that only one pair of rails can be used at any ...

to the southern track to allow freight trains to pass through the station on that track (rather than being limited to only using the northern track) without interference from the high-level platform. The new platform is accessible to passengers with disabilities using a mobile wheelchair lift but is only used occasionally, such as during service disruptions. During normal operations, all trains stop at the southern high-level platform.

Bus connections

V-Line * Orange Line (Friday–Sunday only)

References

External links

*
South Shore Line - Stations

SouthShore.Railfan.net

{{South Shore Line navbox South Shore Line stations in Indiana Railway stations in the United States opened in 1985 Railway stations in Porter County, Indiana