Dyer, IN (DYE)

Ticket Revenue

FY 2011

$76,218

Station Ridership

FY 2011

2,439

Note: Fiscal year is from
October through September.

The Dyer station is a simple shelter adjacent to the platform which Amtrak opened on April 27, 1986. Made of aluminum and glass, the enclosure provides only seating and light. Amtrak has had a maintenance contract with the town of Dyer since April 1, 2007: the town provides a volunteer caretaker and has assumed the upkeep duties and minor repairs. The Dyer Enhancement Team, a local community activist group, had encouraged the town to either buy or maintain the station before this agreement was made.

Amtrak funded $2,800 toward station repair in 2007, which went toward replacing windows and providing a locking door. By July of 2008, the station parking lot had been restriped, the seats and electrical wiring in the enclosed shelter replaced and the doors fixed.

The first European-descended settlers, primarily Prussian farmers, arrived in Northwest Indiana in approximately 1830. At that time, the area was home to the Potawatomi tribe. In 1838 the original State Line House was built on the much-used Sauk Trail to Chicago as an overnight stopping place. The town was first platted in June 1855.

Aaron Norton Hart, a Philadelphia publisher, moved his family to the area in 1857. The family, which originally owned 15,000 acres in the area, became a prominent employer in local business and commerce. Hart’s wife, Martha Dyer Hart, lent her maiden name to the town when it was incorporated on January 24, 1910.

Dyer found itself at the junction of several railroads, beginning in 1857 when the Michigan Central established a depot in this farming community and built a grain elevator nearby. The Monon Railroad (also known as the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville) operated through Dyer from around 1897 to about 1971, when the railroad merged with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Monon passenger trains operated until 1967 and were much used by the six colleges and universities along its line, now used by Amtrak. The wooden Monon depot and control tower sat at the at-grade junction of the Monon (now CSXT) and Elgin, Joliet and Eastern (EJ&E) lines until almost 1980; no building remains at that site today. The current station sits slightly to the north of that junction. While no business in town is now served directly by the freight lines, they remain very busy—so much so that an increase of freight traffic anticipated as the result of the acquisition of the EJ&E in 2008 was at one point a serious community issue.

During the early 1920s, Dyer achieved national focus when an experimental model highway section was constructed stretching three miles form Dyer to Schererville. Called the “Ideal Section of the Lincoln Highway,” the experiment, financed by federal, state, and county governments and the U.S. Rubber Company, set the standards for highway construction in the United States.

Amtrak does not provide ticketing or help with baggage at the Dyer station.

Dyer is served by two daily trains on the combined Cardinal and Hoosier State routes.