The Elkhart Preservation and Improvement for the Community Project (EPIC) is a $5,236,346 project with a 50% non-federal match provided by the Elkhart & Western Railroad Co. (EWR), the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), the City of Elkhart, and the St. Joseph County Redevelopment Commission (RDC). EPIC will relocate the interchange track used by EWR and Norfolk Southern (NS), upgrade the entire 9-mile EWR Elkhart branch line to Class 1 track safety standards, and expand rail siding capacity to serve the growing recreational vehicle manufacturing and construction materials industries.
EWR’s current interchange track only has room for 18 rail cars, is bisected by a major city street in Elkhart, IN, and is bookended by two more city streets. Securing or coupling trains can block grade crossings for between 15 and 45 minutes when more than 9 cars are interchanged between EWR and NS. Demand for building materials and recreational vehicles manufactured in Elkhart has grown, the line is at capacity, and interchanged traffic regularly exceeds 9 cars per day. By moving the interchange track out of the city center and expanding siding capacity, the EPIC Project will eliminate 621 annual hours of motorist delay, reduce train crew delays by 1,049 hours, and provide capacity for an additional 1,000 rail cars per year, thereby eliminating 865,550 unnecessary truck miles each year.
Over 20 years, the EPIC Project will generate $7,568,196 in net benefits across 9 categories of public and rail operations benefits, generating a benefit-cost ratio of 2.82-to-1.00.
