The South Shore Line Railroad plays an important role in my novel Gitel’s Freedom. Service between Chicago’s Randolf Street Station and downtown South Bend began around 1908. It still operates between Millenium Park station and the South Bend airport.

According to Wikipedia, The South Shore Line is one of the last surviving interurban trains in the United States. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 1,406,900, or about 5,400 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024. It may have survived not only because it links Chicago and South Bend, but because it serves the beach resorts between the two cities, including the Indiana Dunes.

In the novel, one could argue that Gitel and Shmuel might never have met if it hadn’t been so convenient for Gitel to travel on the South Shore Line to Chicago for the Workmans Circle meetings. And Gitel particularly wanted to move to Chicago’s Hyde Park because the train made a stop at the 53rd Street Station, so she could more easily visit her parents and siblings in South Bend.

A funny story: in the late 1940s and 1950s when Gitel and Shmuel were living in Hyde Park, one of the conductors on the train was a Jewish man know to Gitel’s family. Gitel’s mother and aunt would bake challah and pastries, give them to this conductor on Friday morning, and Gitel would meet the specific train on the 53rd Street platform to take them from the conductor. Could not be done today with all the security on the platforms, but back then things were looser.