IN: Transformer damage causes further delay in West Lake rail project

The South Shore Line’s West Lake Corridor project encountered another hurdle when two of the transformers that would send power to the new rail line were damaged during an electrical storm in August.

South Shore President Michael Noland said the storm “fried” the transformers in a way that’s left project contractors and the equipment’s manufacturer searching for answers.

The least damaged of the two transformers has already been shipped back to the manufacturer, MGM Transformers in California, for investigation, but in the best-case scenario, the problem will delay the start of service on the rail line until late January or early February.

“Until we know what the root cause is, we're not going to think about declaring when we're going to be ready for revenue service,” Noland said at Monday’s meeting of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District Board of Trustees, “because we are not going to open up this line unless we know that we've got a fully functional, valid, tested system that we have confidence in that is going to work for the long term.”

Substations along the existing South Shore Line and the new Hammond-to- Dyer extension provide traction power for the trains. There are two other transformers along the West Lake Corridor that Noland said might help it proceed with some of the testing needed in advance of starting service.

“We're right now working to see if we can power those up to start the concurrent testing, so that when this is solved, we're not waiting to do those activities,” he said.

Noland said he wouldn’t speculate on when the problem might be resolved before knowing if the problem involves a particular component, for example, and can be resolved in weeks, or will require a fuller redesign of the system that could take longer.

He said whatever work needs to be done by the manufacturer can be expedited.

"We've been assured by the manufacturer that they understand that we're not going to go to the back of the line," Noland said.

Prior to the emergence of the substation problem, NICTD and its contractors had been aiming for completion of the project by the end of the year, after having completed most of the work to redo the track bed to include equipment to absorb the small amounts of current that escape the railroad’s electrical system.

That current could damage nearby underground infrastructure, but the need to mitigate it had not been accounted for in the initial work. Fixing it required taking up the track and adding the necessary infrastructure, a process that ultimately required new railroad ties to be installed.

All of that work is being done at the expense of the contractors, Noland said. It is now around 85% done.

Another challenge that caused some delay has been completed — construction of the bridge and underpass on Main Street at the southern terminus of the West Lake project. That portion of the project required coordination with CSX railroad, which operates parallel to the new commuter rail line.

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