We investigate the Chern–Ricci flow, an evolution equation of Hermitian metrics generalizing the Kähler–Ricci flow, on elliptic bundles over a Riemann surface of genus greater than one. We show that, starting at any Gauduchon metric, the flow collapses the elliptic fibers and the metrics converge to the pullback of a Kähler–Einstein metric from the base. Some of our estimates are new even for the Kähler–Ricci flow. A consequence of our result is that, on every minimal non-Kähler surface of Kodaira dimension one, the Chern–Ricci flow converges in the sense of Gromov–Hausdorff to an orbifold Kähler–Einstein metric on a Riemann surface.