(Written by kencraw)

Let’s start with the simple… DO NOT TAKE THIS TRAIN!

When looking at the options for getting from Chicago to Notre Dame stadium we found 3 choices:

1. Rent a car – But staying in a downtown hotel (and thus overnight parking being very expensive) we chose to go without a rental car.
2. Take one of the gameday shuttles – But these were pretty pricey, starting at $100 a person.
3. Take the South Shore Line Train for $30 round trip – which has the caveat that the return trip is a bit later in the evening than one would like for the game time, but otherwise is pretty good.

Doesn’t seem like a hard decision, does it? (Particularly for frugal folks.)

We got on the train at about 8:45 AM en route for South Bend Airport. We expect to arrive there around noon there will be a shuttle bus that will take us from the airport to the stadium.

Yet about an hour into the train ride, the conductor comes through and says the train has had a section that has been out of service for a while so we have to get off the train and onto a bus. There’s not much more detail given than that.

We get off the train and they have a bus “for the Notre Dame game” and one for the airport. We go to get on the bus for the game but yet it fills up before we get up there. (For later note, that bus was blue and all the rest were white.) We’re directed to the white bus and told it’ll get us to the game. We’re curious why they’ve done this odd separation if it is all going to the same place, but we don’t really have a choice and we get on the white bus.

The bus drives for about an hour stopping at a few train stations on the way to drop off and pick up travelers. Finally the busses stop at another station and we’re told we’re getting onto this train on the other side of the “dead” section that will take us the rest of the way to the stadium. Oddly, while we see 3 or 4 white busses, there’s no blue bus there and we seem to be short about 50 people of the ~200 people on the train. Where’d they go?

The train arrives at the airport and we’re directed to the curb for the shuttle. Yet there’s no bus there and nobody from the train company to usher us. There’s about 50 of us all staring at each other for about 10 minutes while we watch the other 100 or so either get in some taxi/car or go into the airport. Hmmm… what’s going on?

We wait… some people give up hope and start calling Ubers or getting in taxis… we wait some more… more people bail… we start getting really nervous. So we go looking for some official person to tell us if there is indeed a shuttle bus. Long story short, nobody knows for sure. Finally a train representative tells us the shuttle is independent from the train company and they’re not sure.

That was our breaking point and we called an Uber. And frankly, that worked fine. The only complaint is that the website for the train clearly indicates they provide a shuttle including pickup time and location after the game. If they don’t have one they shouldn’t be telling us they do.

Now the game is over and there’s supposedly a shuttle, but of course we are full of doubts. But since the shuttle leaves the camps really early compared to when the train leaves, we decide to see if it magically appears. We had the whole afternoon to think things over and we had the working theory that the now infamous Blue Bus had gone straight to Notre Dame stadium, skipping the 2nd train segment and *THAT* was the shuttle. The fact that it was overflowing was something they hadn’t planned for and thus hadn’t come up with a contingency plan for taking additional people from the airport to the game.

We figured that the the worst case scenario was the shuttle never came and we’d just take an Uber (and it being many hours after the game, we were confident we’d get one). But if it did, how nice would it be if it took us all the way to the far side of the “dead” section of track? Very nice indeed.

Of course it was no huge surprise when the shuttle never came and we caught the Uber instead. When we get to the airport there are a number of game attendees (both Cal and ND fans) already waiting. With about an hour to kill until the train arrives, we start talking and I ask about the infamous Blue Bus. Ironically, we were right. It had indeed gone straight to the stadium.

But here’s where it gets ridiculous… there were two trains that returned to Chicago that evening. One left the airport at 5:46 PM local time. That was just before the game ended. When one takes into account the time it takes to get out of the stadium, walk to a road and drive to the airport, it would mean leaving the game at half time to catch that train. Who wants to do that, right? The other train left at 10:16 PM from the airport, which while late, is the obvious choice for people going to the game to take. Which one do you think they had the Blue Bus waiting for?

The 5:45 PM one of course! How stupid is that?

OK, back to the South Bend airport waiting room at 9:00 PM. The game has been over for over 3 hours. It’s been a long day. We know we’ve got a complicated train to bus to train 3 hour trip in front of us. Then a voice comes over the announcement system: “The South Shore Line Train is running 30 minutes behind schedule” and further explains it’s due to the whole bus shuttle leap-frog.

Ugh! While not particularly surprising… it’s still going to make a long day longer. We’re tired. We want to get back to the hotel. And when you’re in that state you start thinking crazy ideas. Things like “How much is an Uber from here to Chicago?” It turns out, while expensive, it’s not crazy: $185.

We talk it over and decide it’s a bit too much… but then the weirdest thing happens: An unexpected train shows up. We’re told it’s out of service but they’d let us get on and it would take us to where the bus would eventually pick us up to do the leapfrog. But that bus/leapfrog wouldn’t happen until the 10:16 train got there.

We’ve got just minutes to decide. Stay where it’s comfortable or get as far down the line as we can as soon as we can? Perhaps the Uber will be cheap enough from that spot… Perhaps there will be an unexpected bus we can talk into doing the leapfrog early… and the worst case scenario is that we have to wait at that far off station instead of here and it’s not quite as comfy. So we go for it.

Long story short, we get the leapfrog point and there’s no bus waiting and the Uber from there is still over $150. So we end up waiting for the 10:16 PM train to catchup. Oh well.

And if that were the end of the story, perhaps I could let it go…

The bus arrives about 15 minutes before the train arrives. We get on the bus. The train arrives. Everyone tries to get on… and there’s not enough room for everyone.

AGAIN!?! Seriously? They didn’t have enough room on the Blue Bus in the morning. They have the Blue Bus return with the wrong train. And to add injury to insult, they haven’t corrected for the larger than expected crowd for the return home and are *STILL* short room on the bus.

Our bus leaves to leapfrog, but since this is the last train of the night, we know we’ll be waiting for them to find some way to get the remaining people across the leapfrog. And sure enough, that’s what happens. We get to the far side of the leapfrog and we have to wait a full hour for them to get the 2nd group there. Painful! We didn’t end up getting to Chicago until a full 8 hours after the game had ended, nearly 2 hours behind schedule.

So, long story short, DO NOT TAKE the South Shore Line Train.